A Mandate from Heaven
by Mary Tzu
Summary: Many years after The Legend of Korra, a new crisis threatens to once again throw the world into chaos. One fateful day Hiro, a fire bending adventurer, is offered a job to protect some farmers in a tiny Water Tribe country. The following is his own book telling his own legend that will change the world!
1. Chapter 1

In the first year before Sozin's comet, the young avatar Aang was able to master the four elements and defeat Phoenix King Ozai, ending 100 years of colonialism and imperialism. Aang spent the decades after trying to heal a broken world, founding the United Republic of Nations, and striving to bring his culture back from the point of genocide. All the while, Aang sought to overcome collectivism to find deeper understanding between individuals. Seventy five years after the defeat of Ozai, Aang's successor - Avatar Korra - faced many challenges. Thrust into a world in a state of change, she put down the Equalist revolt, prevented the summoning of Raava during Harmonic Convergence, thwarted the Red Lotus anarchist terrorists, and stopped Kuvira - the Great Uniter of the fragmented Earth Kingdom - from fulfilling her conquest of the world by establishing an authoritarian dictatorship. Throughout all of this, Korra both learned and taught the lesson of finding the good things in every system, and listening to the merits of your enemies without resorting to extremism. Her goals accomplished, she retired to explore the Spirit World to help guide the newly conjoined Mortal plane through this time of great change. But what if the message and principles of Kuvira continued to spread while she was imprisoned? What if the Earth Kingdom's newly formed democracy simply voted her back into power following her prison sentence? What if Korra, returning to our world, found herself powerless to stop this? What if we continue this trajectory for another seventy five years? Avatar Winnu, an earthbender has succeeded Avatar Korra and has been taught by the Earth Kingdom from the start. Kuvira's Party seeks to spread her ideals whilst running the Earth Kingdom under an iron fist. Limitless industrialization has changed the landscape of the world, and no tradition is too sacred to be offered on it's altar. Without the Avatar to guide it, can balance ever be restored to the world? Come and see.

 **** _"We always used to have the same people who would say 'don't hit the brake until the glass breaks. Don't stop until you hear glass break.' And so I always think the point of writing is to coach yourself to that point that you would never have gone voluntarily and also to coach a reader to the point where the reader would never have gone voluntarily_ "

~Chuck Palahaniuk

Look at that man, cobbled together, shellacked, holes in his legs and sides and a few ounces lighter. He scrambles like a rat. He thrashes like an animal. He's fighting for very life, yet is only in this position because he chose this path. He chose some worthless ideals to go and die for. But he does not scramble and thrash aimlessly. After wiping the blood and jet black hair from his eyes, he finds the electrical panel. He yelps as he plunges his fingers into his wounds, then again as he cauterizes them with a jet of flame from his fingertips. The barricade thrown across the door won't last forever. Every second he wastes, his chances of escape and survival grow slimmer.

Come on, you bastard! If you don't make it, it will all be for nothing! But the weight of what he's just done has yet to sink in. It's so repugnant it will take days to sink in. Even as he finds himself cornered he has no understanding of just how many sharks have begun to circle him.

He opens the electrical panel and grabs the hot-wire with bare flesh. The hair on his body stands on end as if afflicted with goose pimples. The man sighs in exhaustion as the door begins to cave inward. Its handle begins to crush inward like one would crush up a newspaper and then is hurled as ejecta across the room by invisible forces. The man closes his eyes. It is time. The thunderclap is as deafening as it is brief, and the flash just as bright, only to be followed by total and absolute darkness. Not just in this room, but for five city blocks every light bulb, every telescreen, every Satomobile, and all but the spring-wound pocket watch sputter and stop in their tracks.

The man uncoils. He explodes from where he stands. He has not merely channeled lightning but become it. He sweeps the rifle from the floor and holds it tight, his fingertips charring the walnut handguard, As he crashes unseen through that very same door and it erupts into splinters. He can't see them. He can feel them. And as their roles switch in an instant, he can feel their fear. The butt of his rifle slides into his shoulder as it has so many times before and once more he pulls the trigger.

The world is forever changed. The seeds were planted long, long ago and they have no one to blame but themselves. Those like me have no other choice – we simply have to punish them. If you really want to understand why you have to go back, to the very start of it all…

I stood transfixed to the music that filled the crowded subway as we waited for our train. In the corner by the stairs was an old and disheveled looking man playing a violin (the 2nd movement of Cao Cao's 5th if my memory hasn't failed me). I remember my mother kneeling down beside me, putting her hand on my shoulder and looking me in the eyes

"It sounds beautiful, doesn't it?" she asked. I nodded. My mother smiled, "Food and drink nourishes your body, but music is what feeds and nourishes your soul." My mother then held my hand as we boarded our train, but not before putting some money into the musician's violin case. Looking back, she was right. Music did nourish my soul; but I don't believe it was enough to save it.

My name is Hiro. This is not a memoir, and this is not my earliest memory, but this is the earliest one that matters, so I have included it in the hopes that you might understand what made me what I am a little better. I am a mercenary by trade, but you already know me as a terrorist or a fugitive. That is why I have written this account, in the hopes that I may plead my case.

Maybe that was a little too far back. Let's fast forward about twenty years

It was the Summer of 152 ASC. Everyone knows how it started; I won't bore you with details. I was in my apartment watching the telescreen when it happened. I usually don't watch the news, I just keep the telescreen on as white noise (why bother hearing about the latest daily Water Tribe on Water Tribe murder?), but the urgency of the anchor's voice caught my ear, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. District eleven, a predominantly Water Tribe autonomous region, had declared independence from the from the Fire nation.

As a colony of the Fire Nation, it would have been insignificant had it not been turned into a breadbasket almost overnight under the stewardship the region's Chancellor Du Lin. There was no ultimatum, no declaration of secession, nor was there any warning. That fateful night, while half the Fire Nation's soldiers lay asleep and the others were drinking to oblivion, a thousand Water Tribe locusts descended on the farm land and wrested their ownership gunpoint. The other's were rounded up and arrested. They were packed onto blimps and sent back unfettered to the Fire Nation the next day as a show of good will. While bloodless, this was the theft of massive and valuable Fire Nation territory under threat of violence by direct order of Du Lin herself. "Nationalization," she had called it. And now the entire world held its breath and turned its gaze to a tiny little peninsula jutting from the underbelly of the Earth Kingdom.

The little nation that could. Ha! What rubbish.

I got the phone call two weeks later. I can't recall the specifics (I was unaware at the time of how important it would become) but I do remember the gist of what happened

"Is this Hiro?" asked a woman's voice. It sounded older.

"Who wants to know?"

"I'm offering you a job in Jia," she said, "I know it's getting harder and harder for someone with your skill set to find work these days."

Immediately I began running a backtrace. I talked with her for several minutes partially as standard formality, and partially to stall for time. She talked with me long enough without really saying anything, and all I got out of her was that it was in Jia (that's what they were already calling this newfound state of theirs). Eventually we began to talk dragon-turkey.

"I'm gonna need details. You can't expect me to just take a job blind."

"We're looking to hire some extra muscle during our… transitioning stage. You'll be working as part of a special operations cell. You've done that before, haven't you?"

Not since I'd left the Earth Kingdom Army, "I'm not a charity. Give me a real reason I should work for some raggedy waterbender gang?"

"Five hundred Yuans per day, all expenses paid, one hundred thousand at completion of contract."

"When, where, and how?"

"Go to the aerodrome at noon tomorrow. You'll find a man there holding tickets for you. The decision is yours." She hung up.

I checked the back-trace – no dice. I had no idea what sort of line she was using, but it was very secure.

I started to pack my bags, and left the radio on to fill the empty space.

"What I meant to say is that the very existence of Jia is a rallying point for the Water Tribe people. By flexing their newfound political muscles, the idea of having Water Tribe reservations in the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation is a very real possibility. It would be good for everyone to bury the hatchet and make friends with the Water Tribe."

"What you really mean to say is that you'd be happy to appease a rogue nation. There is no need to have reservations, nor should the nation of Jia exist."

Big empty words coming from a citizen of the Fire Nation. They would do nothing against Jia save blow hot air. I personally doubt the Fire Nation would even go to war again for the next thousand years lest someone accuse them of genocide.

"The Water Tribe finally has its own country to call home," another commentator spoke, "and I believe that this is a good thing. If Jia exists then we will not need the reservations. Were the airbenders only a little bit less well off than the Water Tribe when they were given the Air Sovereignty?"

The man was immediately cut off by a typhoon of booing as the audience cried 'murderer' and 'supremacist.' But he was right. The Fire Nation genocide killed millions, but the reach of the Fire Nation was only as far as its frontlines and the airbenders were nomads free as the wind. By the end of the war there were about a thousand airbenders in Ba Sing Sei alone. Of course, by then the damage had already been done and no airbender dared practice their ability lest the Earth Kingdom collaborators were to turn them over to the fire nation for money or safety – something the Earth Kingdom was quick to forget.

"That's where you're wrong. The Air Nomads can go freely as they please. Many of the waterbenders in the Earth Kingdom cannot even afford to leave. How do you suppose they'll make it to Jia? Reservations will become necessary, like it or not"

The firebender spoke again, "What do you think Jia was up until the point when they seceded? Autonomous Region Eleven was a reservation for the Water Tribe, in everything but name. You give you give and give, and the Water Tribe just takes and takes and takes. Where does it end? Those reservations of yours would become nothing more than breeding grounds for crime. What happens when those reservations feel like succeeding and becoming rogue states? Reservations in the Earth Kingdom; reservations in the Fire Nation… Next you'll be telling me that you want reservations in the Air Sovereignty. Tell me where it ends, Shin!"

You could hear the audience rise from their seats in applause, and I rose from mine to turn the radio off I had to focus on packing my belongings, anyway. Some long guns and battle rattle to be shipped in an unmarked crate. You could sneak just about anything through security onto a zeppelin if you knew who to bribe. And so, against my better judgment, I made my preparations to depart the Earth Kingdom's People's Democratic Republic.

The money was just too good.

That morning I went to the aerodrome and found a waterbender with my tickets just like the woman said there'd be, and boarded the Zeppelin. We were off with a boom! Arc elements fired bolts of manmade lightning into the bladders of dephlogisticated air. The room temperature helium and nitrogen heated and expanded, lifting us skyward. I smirked as I watched the first timers jump at the report.

But I had gotten used to the sound some time ago. The first thing you learn serving in the military is to sleep at all times in all places whenever possible. Never stand when you can sit. Never sit when you can lay down. It's about the only way to get thru the lulls in an eight month deployment; it would be insufferable otherwise. So I did what all grunts did. I tipped my head back, closed my eyes, and slept.

I woke with the Sun streaming directly into my eyes. Such is the price to pay for having a window seat. I tried to make sense of where we were and how much time had passed, and groaned from the stiffness in my neck. I looked down and saw an expanse of brown and tan and grey in the flat Jian bush; sparse vegetation and the occasional gnarled tree that stretched for miles. Ahead of us was a horizon of green. It grew closer until it we passed above. It looked like a marvelous patchwork quilt of more different hues of green than I even knew existed. The unnatural bismuth-like fractal of crops was hard to believe and made any attempt at judging distance impossible. An Oasis of green in the middle of desert and only made possible thru the efforts of Jian water bending. Yesterday owned by the Fire Nation's corporate and state organs. Today owned by the Jian people. Only the farms of Ba Sing Sae could rival this place. We passed by several of these farms on the descent to Yakima

As we landed and I departed the air ship, the aerodrome looked like any other. You might think you were in Ba Sing Sae if not for the suffocating heat. Sure enough a man was waiting for me, by name. His bright teeth and genuine unapologetic smile stood out against the darkness of his skin. He was a broad shouldered towering man, with arms like timber and skin interlaced -with tribal tattoos.

"Greatings, Hiro!" his voice boomed. "I am Buno! Quanuippit!"

"um…"

"this is the part where you say 'Quanuinngittunga,' my friend. Hahaha! We should get going if we want to beat the heat."

The two of us dragged my luggage from the air ship and loaded it onto his four by four satomobile. We began to drive past the city and all of its carbon copied concrete and into the brush. As we drove farther and farther west I could every so faintly make out mountains in the distance.

"How much farther are going, anyway?" I asked

"About an hour more. We have a fob out there, and I'm taking you to meet our handler. He's a good man. Swamp-bender from the Earth Kingdom Army named Hei Bai."

"What about you?"

"I grew up here. In the bush, not in the cities or one of the ghettos. I's a hunter. Learned to track and use the bow from my father, and my father from his father. I guess you could say I'm one of the old breed"

"You some kind of noble savage then?" not my most tactful choice of words.

He shook his head, "Water Tribe's not savage. Not noble, either. We're all just folk, same as anybody else."

"But you have made pilgrimage to the legendary Northern Water Tribe, right?"

"I have."

"And the city ruins? What was it like? What did you see?"

"The city? …I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"There's not enough ice anymore," He said. "It's all gone, Hiro; there is no city. It's all melted."

Soon enough we come upon the mess of tents and sandbags the Buno promised. The air is abuzz with the sound of shovels and patter of running boots and foul words, gunpowder and motor oil and an even fouler smell of men that haven't washed in three days. Buno slows to a stop and parks as we reach some particular tent indistinguishable from all the others. As I unpacked my equipment from the satomobile a man approached me from one of the tents.

Like a contorted parody of Buno he approaches with a stupid ear-to-ear grin on his face. He was a wiry tooth pick of a man in contrast to Buno's stature. Where Buno was dark he looked almost sickly pale and where Buno had tattoos on his arms, this man had hideous tan lines from where he had worn body armor without a uniform. I know this because he was shirtless and wearing nothing but a boonie cap and revealing pair of shorts that would probably not even been acceptable for a woman to wear in an Omashu strip club. With a pair of short socks he also wore a pair of clown-like combat boots. It was somewhat difficult to make out the features of his face; his nose was covered in too much sunscreen and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of goofy aviators. His lanky stride was… comical at best but at the least seemed self-assured.

"Hello! Is your name Hiro?"

"Yes, it is"

"My name is Hei Bai," he said, "But you can call me 'Sir'."

"I'm sorry?"

"I'll be your handler for the duration of your contract"

"Yes, sir"

I went to snap a salute but he stuck out his hand instead. It took me a second to understand his gesture, and awkwardly I lowered my salute and gave him a handshake.

"Come to my tent," He said, "There's something you need to see."

Captain Hei Bai's tent could only be described as a rat-hole. All around were unopened cardboard packages, re-rationed MREs and ruck sacks littering the floor. He had replaced is bed with a hammock, in order to fit more stuff on the floor that wouldn't fit under a bed. He had made enough space in one of the corners for a desk, which was littered with papers. He dug around in one of cluttered drawers until he pulled out an elephant-rat trap.

"Do you trust me?" he said.

There was an awkward pause – I wasn't sure where he was going with this.

After taking off his sunglasses, he set the trap on the desk, cocked the bar back and set it to spring, and said, "This is an elephant-rat trap." He pulled a pencil form one of the drawers then locked his icy blue eyes with mine. "It'll snap your finger like twigs. Watch!"

Hei Bai poked the trap with the end of the stylus and it was ripped from his fingers, splintering in two. He reset the trap.

"Do you trust me?" He asked again

"I don't understand, sir."

He picked up the trap, delicately, setting it on top of his palm, "You're going to play your hand flat, palm down, and when I tell you, you're going to slam it on top of this trap." He held the trap in front of me and reluctantly my hand hovered over his.

"Do it," he said.

I started to pull my hand back

"If this trap goes off and breaks your trigger finger, I've just lost an invaluable asset. I trust myself enough to know that this will work; all I'm asking is for you to do the same."

My hand levitated over the trap for what felt like eternity, and then I slammed my hand down on his. There was a *click* - my heart stopped, but Hei Bai's hand held firm, pressing the trap into mine. It held. I eased off the initial force once I knew that I had made solid contact. Dozens of pounds of spring-loaded force now held back with the weight of a feather. He started to giggle.

"So little faith…" Hei Bai chided, "I told you it would work."


	2. Chapter 2

It had only been a few days since the unilateral declaration of independence, and already an insurgency had broken out on the western border of the country. The Jian's we're prepared for this; there had been ethnic tensions with the Yellow tribals living in the country for years and they knew as soon as they seceded that outsiders would begin to stir up trouble. It was no coincidence that the insurgency started out west either. It was in the foothills that made both farming and military mobilization difficult. One of the most important principals of guerilla warfare is that no insurgency can survive without support – supplies, training, and intelligence – from another friendly nation. The Fire Nation. Naturally, being on the border made outside help that much easier. The border was porous like a sieve and the enemy could scurry back into the Earth Kingdom at a moment's notice.

There are two things that you can do in this situation. Mobilize the army and have them secure every town under martial law, sweeping house to house, acting as police when they've only been trained as soldiers to shoot whatever they consider a threat. Or, if the insurgency is still in its infancy, you can mobilize teams of special operators and light infantry, working in small groups moving light and fast, to smother your enemies before the violence spreads. The generals and political leaders of Jia wisely chose the latter option.

While Jia did have a functioning military it was still lacking in manpower. They had plenty of grunts to do grunt work, and ex-military Water Tribesmen were flocking to the country by the blimp-load to act as private security for farmers. But for a spec-ops team you need spec-ops soldiers with spec-ops training and spec-ops experience. To that end, the Jian's were forced to outsource on occasion to men and women her were not of Water Tribe ethnicity. Hei Bai tells me I was handpicked for this job.

When I served as a special operator in the military I was part of a sniper team. There's a common misconception about snipers among the civilian populace. It's often thought that snipers are individual hiding out in apartment building or on the rooftops, but this isn't true – at least not of the professionals, anyway. Nor do they usually work in simple pairs. In fact most professionals work in teams of six. The commander is an experienced sniper working as the spotter. His protégé is the triggerman with a scoped rifle. You have a radioman next, to receive orders or report the enemy and call artillery strikes. Next is a demoman. And last are the two meathead gunfighters – that's me.

Being part of the lucky twenty percent of the population that was gifted with bending, I was a prime candidate for special operations. Being a fire bender in the Earth Kingdom practically guaranteed it.

I still remember my very first combat deployment as part of a sniper team. I was only nineteen at the time. I had seen combat before – it was one of the pre-requisites to make it into special forces, after. I had been a firing range instructor back then. I requested to be moved up to a front line forward outpost during the Taku insurrection to give the soldiers there some live-fire training with new equipment. I really just wanted to get my combat badge. Sure enough, some insurgents began taking potshots at the camp from almost half a kilometer away, I fired a few rounds in their general direction, and at the end of the day I went home with a medal.

This was different.

This was the real thing.

"It's alright if you're scared," Korah said to me. "You just don't want to show it."

I was young. I hadn't learned yet to bury everything inside like Captain Jian Li or Corporal Yui. I think everyone in the powered glider was scared, and they called me out for reminding them.

There was a little jungle country south of Gao Ling . The territory was in anarchy, control was being vied for by several different warlords. Disease ran rampant. The people were mostly uneducated and illiterate. Healers Without Nations tried to send humanitarian aid, but many of the natives were superstitious and believed that they could cure their venereal diseases if they had their way with the water bending healers. After reports of gang rape reached the media, there was a huge outcry for the Avatar to do something about the situation.

Avatar Sun Yu called upon the United Republic to mobilize its forces, and as the army restored order across towns and villages, special teams like mine were sent into the jungles to scout ahead, plant traps, or assassinate warlords.

We flew to the coast of that country and were inserted by air. The light in the back of the cargo bay blinked red. A loud and terrible gust of wind flooded the compartment.

"Thirty seconds!" our pilot shouted over the wind.

I did a double check of my parachute, my dive mask, and regulator – all systems good. The light switched from red to green.

Two by two we jumped. Naturally Korah the air bender jumped first with Yui the water bender right behind him. I ran after them just as I had so many other times in training. With a final leap my feet cleared the back of the glider, my stomach rising to my chest and my heart skipping a beat as the empty nothingness swallowed me up.

Bumi's words to me before takeoff that day crept into my mind, "Listen up, new guy. I'm gonna be right behind you in the lineup. I absolutely hate night jumps, even more than you do. I'm depending on you not to screw this up, but I want you to know that if you lose track of Korah, I'll be right behind you. If you get lost, I'll find you."

I looked down into the blackness and saw a single star of clean white light. It was the strobe on Yui's back that would guide me to my destination. She, too, was guided by the strobe on Korah's back. Just like the strobe on my back would guide Bumi above me. It helped put my mind at ease.

The light below me appeared to split into four pieces as Yui opened her parachute with four little strobes in the corners. I pulled my parachute in turn and winced as I was yanked from one hundred ninety to sixteen kilometers an hour in only a handful of seconds. I'm finally slow enough to take in the reflection of the moon on the water, marking the silhouette of the distant coastline. I can hear the crashing of invisible waves beneath me. A second set of strobes rises up from beneath Yui's till it passes her, as Korah – job complete – opens his chute and rises to my level. It was Yui's turn now. About a minute later and her strobes turn from white to red, signaling that she has ejected from her harness.

A leap of faith, I eject from mine as well. I can only trust her judgment of how close to the sea we are. My heart wells up into my throat again but only for an instant.

From toe to head, the sea reached up and engulfed me. I opened my eyes. More blackness. Darker this time, too. I could not see my hand in front of my face; whether my eyes were open or closed made no difference.

I felt something brush up against my aide and I startled. I drew my dive knife and raised it to stab whatever threat was near me. Something grabbed my wrist, stopping me from thrusting. I squirmed and flailed my free limbs for some good time before my wits returned to me and I had the common sense to turn on my head lamp with my free hand. It was Yui gripping my wrist. She slowly shook her head side to side, her eyes burning with contempt at my lapse in intelligence. I still can only imagine how she found me and the others in the darkness – some sort of water bending sixth sense. Well, it was her job after all. Though not only did she find us, but she guided us ten meters deep through five kilometers of Unagi infested waters to our destination.

We emerged from the surf, rifles drawn and at the ready. Even in water up to our waists, we moved fast and quiet up the beach. We were ghosts. As we moved through the mango grove deeper into the jungle, we encountered our first enemy, a lone rebel sentry. We were only fifteen meters away, but he did not see us through the dark. We walked through ankle-deep water, but he did not hear us through the waves. Yui's turn again.

The sentry did not notice her till the last second. He wheeled around just as a bolus of water enveloped his head. He tried to escape, but his feet were rooted to the ground with ice and his trigger hand uselessly frozen to his rifle. I'll never forget the man's face, wavy through the water engulfing it, his eyes wide in terror, drowned while standing in only ten centimeters of water. I'll never forget Yui's either. Her teeth gritted, her brows furled together. Yui's anger was cold. It was collected.

No. Anger isn't even a good word for it. What Yui felt was hate

There are a lot of different ways to deal with death and killing. I was inexperience and the time, and let things like the sentry's downing get to me before I learned how to deal with it. Jian Li turned to hardiness and resolve. Korah was the exact opposite. He turned to black humor. More than that, he turned to his rifle's scope. It pulled him out of reality. Looking through his scope he never really had to look at death; it was like watching a film. The scope of Korah's rifle was his condom: it let him interact with the world without ever having to really feel a part of it or dirty himself with his own action.

Then there was Jet, our demoman. He just worked on his earth bending to distract himself. Bumi, the only nonbender, would drown his sorrows.

Yui learned to hate. They say it's hard to take another man's life, but that's not true. You'd be scared of what you were capable of if someone put a gun your hands and someone else were shooting at you. Killing in cold blood, however, is another matter entirely. It takes a lot of passion and a lot of will. Most of all it takes a way to cope. Killing in cold blood is much easier your victim is less than human, and that's why Yui learned to hate and despise her enemy. She had a huge reserve to rely on, too. Many member of the Water Tribe join the military to escape the factories or the communal farms. Yui joined to get off the streets and whatever sort of life she led left her angry and bitter.

We abandoned our dive gear shortly after. Without his dive suit's hood, Korah's blue arrow tattoo glimmered quietly in the moonlight. I was glad to be able to ditch the live bomb of compressed air from my back. Glad to get rid of the weight, too; we had a long way to go. Sweat dripped into my eyes like little stinging drops of fire. The air hung heavy with moisture and the taste of salt dripped into my mouth. I tried to wipe the sweat from my eyes and brow, but only succeeded in rubbing it into my eyes. Our target was the apex of a hill over-looking a dirt road. To get to the hill involved a twenty one kilo hike uphill through the jungle; we made it in three hours.

Our mission was to kill a rival sniper known as the Painted Death. An amateur and a singleton. Unremarkable, if not for the name – and the namesake mask. That's how it is, however; the legend always far exceeds the man. So for every peacekeeper he actually killed there were two more psychological casualties. We needed to nip his legend in the bud. A fake intel leak here and there, and he'd believe our team had come here to assassinate one of the local warlords. Sniping an elite EKA spec-ops team was an opportunity to fuel his legend we knew that he couldn't resist. He knew we were coming, and have the drop on us. We'd just have to aim better than he could.

Every war has legends and heroes. The Great War against the Fire Nation had myriads of heroes including no less than the legend of Aang himself. There was Kuvira and Korra in the next, and innumerable before. People forget that the people behind the legends were still human. We were here to ensure there would never be a Legend of the Painted Death.

We reached the clearing at the top of the hill. If they had laid an ambush we would have smelled them on the approach. The hilltop was empty. This meant that either we were being stood up, or the Painted Death had accepted our invitation. Yui, Bumi, and I set up a defensive perimeter. Korah got into position and loaded his rifle.

"Anti-personnel, tracer, silicate core," Jian Li whispered to him

I could hear Korah open the bolt of his rifle, insert the round into the chamber, and then lock the breech closed. Korah got into position and then spun ninety degrees to his left. This was the moment of truth: the Painted Death had the advantage, he could already see us. Korah had to better than him; being good doesn't cut it.

"Do you have eyes on target?" Korah asked.

"Five degrees to your left," Jian Li answered

"Negative."

"Look for tree-cancer"

"Got him… "

"Range: eight hundred meters, elevation: seven degrees. Crosswind: four knots. Korah, hold the air."

"Holding"

I didn't notice how loud the breeze was until it was stopped. Suddenly the whole jungle seemed to go quiet

"Take the shot."

"Sir, I think he can see me, he's looking right at me"

"Take the shot!"

The Bang! of the report rattles around inside my skull like a thunderclap. I jolted awake in my sleep as if I had been the one who was shot. I was still in one piece, only another of many dreams and nightmares to come.

"It's the heat," said a cigarette smirched voice.

I looked to the cot beside mine. Kneeling at the foot of the bed was a man. A yellow man like me, not of the brown skinned Water Tribe. However from his features and rugged scars I could that he was not a northern Earth Kingdom member, and certainly not a member of the Fire Nation, but rather a local tribesman from the Jian peninsula.

"Everyone wakes up early form the heat around here," he continued, "It's only six hundred hours, but the sun's been up since O' five hundred"

"Wh—who are you?"

The man gave a smile unlike Buno's or Hei Bai's. It was a warm and gentle smile. The sort of smile a father was supposed to have.

"I am Chang,'' he said, tightening the laces of his combat boots."I'm the squad machine gunner in Hei Bai's lance."

"Small world," I said. "I'm one his riflemen."

"I already know… Breakfast is at O'-seven hundred in his tent. You need to be there," and with that he left.

I crawled out of bed half an hour after our exchange. I fought to keep the sweat out of my eyes as I tied my boots. Not from the lack of sleep but from the heat alone I was already exhausted, and it was only morning. I opened the flap to our tent and stepped into the blinding angry sun. I started to look for Hei Bai's tent, and as I meandered through the encampment in a state of confusion I soon became lost. Eventually I ended up behind the burn pit and I saw what I wished I hadn't. For all of Chancellor Du Lin's talk of building a better nation state, she managed to drag along all the usual degeneracy into her paradise, especially the expected baser nature of the Water Tribe conscripts. Hiding behind the burn pit from their officers who were no doubt turning a blind eye, were a handful of noncombatant enlisted men, shooting up their heroin, or opium or whatever was the drug of choice around these parts.

I turned around and headed back to my tent, disgusted and disappointed. Not disappointed in them, but rather in myself for naively expecting any better. As in the ghettos, so in Jia. I returned to the tent with a scowl on my face, laid back on the bed, and tried in vain to go back to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

I laid on my cot for another half hour but was unable to find rest. Peeling myself from the sheets I left a sweat angel behind me. The long pants and long sleeves certainly didn't help in the heat. Again I made my trek to Hei Bai's tent and stepped thru the portal inside. Whatever conversation they were having stopped as they all turned to look at me.

I saw Hei Bai, Buno, and Chang's familiar faces, but was greeted by two more. A strong jawed woman with a smirk on her face, and a man next to her whose face immediately shot an arrow of contempt. They were both by the looks of them mercenaries like myself.

The man asked, "Who's the pretty boy?"

"Play nice, Peng," said Hei-Bai. "This is Hiro, the final member of our team."

Hei-Bai reached into a satchel behind him, pulled out a package, and tossed at me. I caught it.

"What is this?" I asked

Hei-Bai was bemused, "It's an MRE"

"That's not what I meant"

"It's breakfast. Take a seat and we can get started on our meeting."

I opened my package to eat and as was tradition I threw away the little candies that came with the meal. The packaged food nowadays actually wasn't too bad, though one's palette and one's guts were often in stark disagreement.

Hei Bai said "Anyway, Buno was saying…"

"Ah!" Buno spoke. "Hiro, this woman is Koko an Air Nomad of all people! The man here is Peng, an earth bender and veteran of Si Wong."

"Hey there," Koko smiled while Peng continued to say nothing.

After introducing me to the rest of the group, Buno said, "I know you all come from different places and different motivations, but here we are all brothers and sisters. What Hei Bai and I have done is to assemble a lance. A bender of each kind and even a nonbender who is skilled with his hands. When Avatar Aang and Avatar Korra needed to put the world right they had a lance like this one as well. With a team like this there is nothing we can't do."

"What about you, Buno?" Koko asked.

"Ah. I may be but another nonbender," said Buno, "But I am also a police man. Make no mistake that the troublemakers we are dealing with are criminals at the end of the day."

Indeed, Buno was policeman, patrolling up and down flats inspecting crime homestead to home stead. While his Water Tribe heritage granted him obedience from the locals, it was his adoption of the local way of life that granted him respect. His devotion to the traditional arts of his fathers made him an excellent tracker of both man and beast while being no less urbane. Sunken into his kind face were a pair of eyes that could pierce straight into the very soul of any wrongdoer.

As the meeting went on, Hei Bai and Buno both talked about their experiences and touched up on the trivialities of this blossoming war. All the superfluous and extraneous details, from the exact process of checking into camp to resupply and file paperwork, to where to find the best bowl of noodles in the closest town, to the top down order of battle and chain of command structure we would fit into. Following which, we were dismissed and sent to prep our gear so that we could be ready to go at a moment's notice.

As for myself, I of course had my 'Accelerators. The cannon had existed for a long time, but it took many advances to shrink it down small enough for a man to carry. Not quite a cannon anymore, they were officially designated as accelerators. Of course, this was a clumsy word. But the loud staccato pops reminded people in the Fire Nation of Earth Kingdom New Year's celebrations. "Gong he fat choi" had been misinterpreted as "happy new year's" for centuries by Fire Nation people, and they took the first word, Gong, and derived the name we all know today – the gun.

I picked up and loaded my rifle. Stamped on the side was "EKPDR PLAGF QBZ" or "Earth Kingdom's People's Democratic Republic's People's Liberation Army's Ground Forces – Light Automatic Rifle." The less the Earth Kingdom served the people, the longer its name became. But the battle rifle itself was a fine instrument, standard issue of the EKPDR hegemony. Semi automatic. Twenty five round capacity, 7.62x45 cartridge

There was also my scattergun, a hunter's pump action weapon. A simple and practical tool, I could load anything from slugs to fire firepills to grappling hooks thru its bore.

And on top of that there was my Fire Bending. Even if it had gone out of fashion, bending still gave you an _edge_. That little edge could still mean the difference between life and death.

You see, it wasn't the accelerator that changed the world, it was the machinegun. A man with a rifle could still fight honorably, but Sato industries changed all that when a single man could mow down an army from five hundred meters. The Equalists got the last laugh after all.

After changing into a cooler short sleeved shirt, I grabbed the rest of my gear and threw it on the bed. I was putting together my chest rig and sailor's gloves when Hei Bai entered, "scratch that, I want you to come take a ride with me. You've got more people to meet"

Due east we travelled, straight to Capital City, sitting like the head of a pin on the needle thin fjord that penetrated deep into the peninsula; a view of the ocean to remind the water tribe of home. As we drove farther from the FOB scrappy hills turned to brush flatlands, then to homesteads, then to the farms sown with The Five Cereals that seemed to stretch on forever. As you already know, the Earth Kingdom has been going through a record drought for the last five years. Crop production is at an all-time low. Where there was once fertile land, acre by acre it has dried up into desert. The Earth Kingdom is where most of the world gets most of its food, and there's over five billion mouths to feed.

While Cabbage Corps products have been cutting edge and go everywhere from home appliances to military hardware, they have never forgotten their humble agricultural roots. Agricultural government contracts actually make up at least 40% of their revenue, and takes up a least 20% of their R&D budget. The desertification of the Earth Kingdom has been partly stalled in thanks to fertilizers developed and sold by Cabbage Corps. This was not without side-effects, however. During the days that it ever does rain, run-off from the fertilizers would get carried downstream and into the local water supply. The phosphates in the fertilizer would feed the algae in the water, causing red-tides that would kill all the fish and poison anyone who drank the water.

Not so in Jia. Here, where once was dessert, was now farmland. And without the use of nitrogen-phosphate fertilizer, either. With the skill of the Water Benders alone, a forgotten and arid peninsula had been turned into one of the largest bread baskets on the continent.

Eventually we passed thru a checkpoint with barb wire and dragons' teeth that, too, stretched as far as the eye could see. In the distance were fortifications punctuating the landscape just as the kopjes in the brush do, each one covered in machinegun and flak cannon complete and redundant overlap. The Wolf's Teeth. Paid for with Fire Nation purse, it was no coincidence for Chancellor Du Lin to wait till construction was over to seize control of her country.

The next few kilometers were empty scorched. No farms here. Hei Bai stopped the satomobile, got out and began to piss. After he finished writing his name in the dirt he said, "You see this empty land here, Hiro? This is what it's all about. This is the future."

"What are you talking about? It's empty nothing as far as the eye can see."

"we're going to have a new kind of farm." He cast his arms skyward, arched his face to the heavens and spun around, "Solar fields! It's the future. This is what this war is all about."

"I thought it was about farmers"

"Indeed it is, but what do you think we emancipated the farms for, Hiro? The world bank won't deal with a bunch of no-good unegalitarian water benders. But the money we make off the farms we invest in building the solar fields. Capital City's growing and we don't have the coal we need for power or industry. With solar power, we will be a truly independent and modernized Water Tribe nation. Electricity for the people even out in the farmstead, and also for arc welding and other industries. That's our vision here, and that's why they attack the farmers."

Maybe what he said was true. Maybe not. Dear reader, I'm sorry if this is a lot to take in right now, but it is all an important piece in the puzzle of war. They say the first casualty in war is truth, as they also say that war is based on deception. This story you read is another version of the truth, and I hope that you make up your own understanding of it in time.

Finally the Capital City came into view on horizon, a grove of buildings defiantly jutting from the desert. A truly modern city, the sky cloudless blue sky reflected off the glass of the many skyscrapers and office building, making the whole city appear as an oasis. As we drove down the asphalt roads past the small concrete buildings, everywhere there were there were signs of order. At the city entrance were a pair of tanks, and inside the city full armed fire-teams of soldiers were patrolling up and down the streets. Don't worry people of Jia; everything was safe, everything was under control. If that was the intent, it only served to remind me that Jia was on the cusp of war.

In the streets was the animated commotion of celebration and daily commerce. Venders, customers, performers, and policemen all going about their innumerable paths that intersected at this particular moment in time. An air of celebration still gripped the people, and deep-seated societal cleavages and the uncertainty of country's future was not enough to sully their revolutionary spirit. Naturally, traffic moved slower than a koala-turtle. Hei bai threw money at a street vender whilst leaning out the side of our satomobile to grab a handful of gao dian from her as he feathered the break and idled passed them.

Finally parking in front of the Capitol building Hei Bai and I disembarked. This building stood apart from the others for its traditional aesthetics of tiled angled roofs and stone facade. Chen Wi dragons adorned the gutters and workers labored to scrape away Fire Nation insignia and repaint the blue symbols of the Water Tribe. I could faintly smell the Water Tribes beloved sea from here in the here in the heart of the city, and I could even hear the call of seagulls. I followed Hei Bai up the steps and past the huge oak doors into the Capitol building. I was given a pat down and then Hei Bai and I were escorted by armed guards through the rotunda and down a rather large corridor.

The first thing you'll notice if you were talk down this corridor is a very large portrait immediately to your right. The portrait is a painting of a dignified and majestic, though aging, woman. The woman's eyes burned with purpose; her face radiated a stern air of authority. This was the only portrait hanging from the wall, though there was room for dozens more. A bronze plaque beneath the portrait read "First High Chancellor of Jia, Du Lin."

As we reached the end of the hallway, the ornate doors opened up into an office with a large desk. Sitting behind it was an old water tribe woman.

The same as the one in the portrait

"Good morning, Hei Bai," she said

The same as the one I talked with on the phone. "Ah, crap," I thought. This was gonna hurt.

Hei Bai replied, "likewise, ma'am"

"Thank you. If you don't mind, I'd like to speak with Hiro alone."

"Yes, ma'am," Hei Bai said as he turned and departed from the executive office.

Du Lin turned to me, "Good morning, Hiro."

"Good morning, Chancellor."

"Do you know why I asked to see you?"

"no, ma'am."

"For one, I'm honestly surprised you took the contract," she paused for a second "I didn't think you would take it, and I actually didn't want to extend the contract to you after your… _interview_ , but Hei Bai insisted. He hand-picked you, too. Did he tell you that?"

I understood that lances were supposed to be in direct contact with their military's commander in chief, but I had no idea that it was Hei-Bai that had chosen me. I tried to hide my astonishment. Spec-ops or not, could a mere Army captain have that much influence over the High Chancellor of Jia?

"No," I said, "I never asked."

"And how do you feel about him? Can you work with a Water Tribe member as your commanding officer? Can you stomach the idea of fighting for a nation led by a member of the Water Tribe?"

"I don't care about ethnicities or leaders. I go where the money is."

"Well you certainly didn't care about things like that when you went on your last job. Getting paid to shoot starving water benders, hmm? I know how much you said you enjoyed it. Enough that you even kept memorabilia."

My black sailors' gloves – I was wearing them right now. My first job after quitting the military had been to act as private security on the deck of a Fire Nation freighter. Nine long months I lived inside the inescapable prison-like confines of that ship. I grew quite close to the crew, the majority of which were Water tribe themselves, and they had given me a fine pair of gloves as a token of camaraderie. Of course, my job was to protect that crew from pirates, the most desperate of which were also Water Tribe members themselves.

It was good pay, I needed some time away from the rest of the world, and if I had to kill people, it wasn't exactly a load on my conscience if I was killing the scum of the earth.

She continued, "Don't deny it, Hiro; Jian intelligence is _thorough_."

I smirked.

"What are you going to say?"

"Nothing, ma'am."

"Don't be so vain to assume I'm singling you out. I've already given the same treatment to every member of the Hei Bai's lance. When you are in my office, you speak freely."

There was a deafening silence between us in few seconds before I spoke, "Perhaps Jian intelligence wasn't quite so thorough."

Of course that's always how it is. Even though soldiers depended on their Intelligence agencies, intel spooks were _never_ to be trusted. First off, even if they didn't give incorrect intel, they often never told you the whole truth. Whenever one was around, you knew that things were either not going to go as planned, or you were about to used – they _always_ had an ulterior motive. It was bad enough that they were civilians sticking their noses into the world of the military, but how could we trust them when they refused to trust their own soldiers?

She asked, "What do you mean?"

"Did you or intel know about the drug addict problem in your military? Just this morning I saw addicts shooting up behind the barracks. They weren't even trying to hide it! You're trying to secure order to your country with an Army filled with the same scum living in ghettos. It's completely unprofessional."

Her eyes suddenly grew cold with anger. I had only seen one other woman with that same kind of cold hate in their eyes before, back when I had served the Earth Kingdom

"You think intel wouldn't catch something like that? You think I didn't know about it? Of course we did. And what would you have me do, Hiro? I am trying to build a nation-state. Was I supposed to just start with the reforms before being able to carry them out? I need an _Army._ These people come from everywhere. Yes, Hiro, it is unprofessional, but I don't have another choice. A good portion of them probably wouldn't even pass selection if they didn't have a little extra kick. What difference does it make anyway? They're all noncombatant jobs, those people.

So my choice is either to have a military with two thousand drug addicts or have a military with two thousand twitchy withdrawal patients. Exactly what are my options, _Hiro_? You hypocrite! You can say anything you want about my people, but you will never be able to hide those scars."

I glanced down at my left arm – forgot I wasn't wearing long sleeves. Yes, recruits of the Earth Kingdom Army were rife with hazing, abuse, and narcotics use. And yes, when I joined the Earth Kingdom Army I was… low. I gave in. I used. But I _quit!_ They had no excuse.

"…I've had enough of you for today," she said. "You're dismissed."

I gave a salute and walked out the door.

The drive back was an awkward one. I was left in a foul mood but Hei Bai was as nonplussed as usual. I hadn't spoke a word to him in over two hours, and I wish I could have just but my tongue during the meeting instead. Finally punctuating the constant silence of the drive back I said, "Well, I think I'm fired now."

Hei Bai began to laugh. "No she loves you," he giggled. "I can tell!" silently we headed onward, chasing the sun to the FOB, as far as such time that it was hanging right above the horizon not as an intangible source of light but a warm and corporeal pit of fire, such that you felt like you could slip off the surface of the Earth at any moment and fall headlong into it.

I went to the head late that night brush my teeth. I was about halfway through and then,

"Good evening!"

I startled, fell to the floor in a whirling dervish of expletives. It was Buno. walked right up to sink next to mine to brush his teeth without making a sound.

"Good evening," I said.

He grinned at my sheepish response as he began brushing. In spite of his hulking size, every one of Buno's movements was graceful like a dancer's – even in brushing his teeth.

"Where have you been today?" I said

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

I was about to open my mouth to ask a question when he said, "Down in Qin, spear-fishing Unagi." He flashed a foamy, toothpasted grin.

To this very day, I still don't know if he was joking.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning I gathered all the supplies I had and needed for a ten day expedition in-country. Our team was going by its new call sign now, Jian-one. Jia's Jian. It was a very apt play on words, fitting for our current mission.

Our first mission was planned to be a boring one. Hei Bai was to provide overwatch on a farming village where there was a high chance of a terrorist raid taking place. In other words, we were to baby sit Hei Bai for a few days while he was glued to his binoculars and directed the cavalry over the radio in the even that anything actually happened.

Nevertheless, I made ready for our excursion. I packed light – not that I had much to pack anyway. None of us did. One of the few things that almost all experienced members of the military have in common is a strong sense of perfectionism and a type-A personality. Keep everything organized. Less is more. It was also one of the things that set Hei Bai apart from the rest of us. I have never seen a more type-B personality in my life. He went into the field with us carrying a fully loaded rucksack with enough useless equipment for just about any scenario possible. I didn't think someone so wiry could carry so much weight, but somehow he managed it. It seems obvious in retrospect, but maybe we should have all had our eyes opened when we saw this. It was the first red flag about Hei Bai. We all should have seen the others after it.

We rolled out of the FOB at 0830. We took a modified truck designed to withstand buried mines; mines where becoming an increasingly popular weapon for the enemy in these parts. The top half of the satomobile had been removed – the Jians found that in the case of an ambush the trucks armored canopy turned it into a cramped death trap. Odds were better to just bail and retreat on foot. Still, riding in one feels incredibly exposed. I rode to the rear of the vehicle, keeping my rifle level and scanning for threats. Next to me sat Peng, who kept to himself. He wore a large yellow-black checkered bandanna, wrapped around his neck like a scarf. It was combat memorabilia, just like my gloves; a reminder that he had fought sand-benders in the Si Wong desert. In the dessert it kept sun off your neck, but out here it kept the biting flies off.

And how the flies bit! They were completely silent but would come round and round to pinch with their mouth-parts. These flies were relentless and impossible to deter. It felt like being stabbed with a redhot needle. I take immeasurable solace in that their bites did not itch afterwards as a mosquito's does.

"How do you bear it?" asked Buno of all people at long last. "I've tracked up and down the brush of this land my whole life and even I still cannot bear these flies"

Though he did not open his mouth, Chang's shoulders heaved in laughter, "you may have been born here, but to these flies you are still all foreigners. I suppose your blood is like a delicacy to them."

Peng lit a cigarette, took a puff, and then passed it to Chang. "The smoking does help, too," Chang said, "they hate the smell more than I do."

Two miles from our OP we disembarked and hiked our way through the dense tall grass to the top of the hill; it was important that not even the farmers we were protecting knew of our location. The first thing we did when we got to set our equipment down and begin clearing a space to camp with our machetes. Hei Bai and Chang worked together to set up a large thermal imager on top of a tripod. He got on the radio when we were done and said, "Jian-Actual, this is Jian-One. We are _grey on the rock._ "

This was spec-ops jargon that is fairly irregular among even those who have served in the military. The 'grey' dealt with the level covertness of an operation. White-Ops were completely overt. Grey-Ops were ops that were not illegal or operation outside of one's jurisdiction, but a low profile was still required. Black-Ops were operations that were completely covert. There was also another color code that would be added in front of the white-grey-black color code if the situation was called. That was Red, like the color of blood – guess what happens on Red-Ops. Lastly, there was the phrase 'on the rock.' The 'rock' simply referred to the ground, meaning that a unit had successfully infiltrated and was in position for the operation to begin.

"What do you mean, grey?" said Koko, looking genuinely disappointed.

"Grey," said Hei Bai, "like in between but neither black nor white. Like, grey."

Koko pouted, "Ah, man. I was hoping we'd get some action, sir. We're not gonna go on a whole deployment without getting' to dispatch some baddies, are we?"

"Not up to me. That's up to the baddies," Hei Bai said. "You're not bored already, are you?"

"No, _sir!"_

"good." He turned to the rest of us, "If you want to keep yourself busy, you can go freely anywhere on the hill. Stay within range of radio contact at all times. There must be at least two people on the OP at any given time. Maintain noise discipline at all times, and maintain light discipline after sundown."

It wasn't just a nicety that he was extending to us. We weren't in enemy territory; the more we moved around the hill the less suspicious and more civilian we'd look. It'd also be a lot harder for the enemy to sneak up on us if we were constantly and randomly moving.

Nothing much happened that night. Hei Bai maintained unwavering attention to the villages through the sights of his thermal imager. Koko zipped around the OP on her air-scooter, or used it to sled to the bottom of the hill. Chang field stripped and cleaned his rifle. Peng sat away from everyone else and smoked.

Me, I watched Jia's sunset. It was strong and shimmering, a proud red sun surrounded by a heavenly gold halo as it crawled across the faded purple pastels of the Jian sky, setting behind the countryside's fertile green hills. I think maybe I understood why so many had come here, why so many had run away from their previous lives to start over.

The next three days were uneventful. Buno and I had one thing in common: we slept at all times possible. On the fourth day I woke up to find that Buno had completely disappeared without anyone seeing him leave. Three hours later he returns with four freshly killed possum-chickens.

"Hiro, Koko: get to work on a fire. Make sure there's no smoke. It needs to be out before sundown," Hei Bai ordered.

While we started the fire Chang and Buno got busy with skinning the possum-chickens. We roasted them on a spit over the open flame. Not exactly gourmet, but if you've spent the last four days eating freeze-dried hermetically sealed 'food' that was packaged before you were born and isn't set to expire until sometime after you're probably dead, then chicken-possum is delicious.

"So," Koko asked Chang, "don't you live in a village like this one?"

"Yes, my family does. The government has just answered our request to start a farm of our very own. It will be good for us to own our farm; there are even some Water Tribe member only a few klicks from us if we have trouble with irrigation."

"Aren't you worried," I asked, "with all this trouble going around?"

"It is troubling, but I have tought my wife to shoot and look after the home in my abscence. she can take care of herself. Besides, I am of an important family in my tribe. Now that I can own a head of cattle, I can finally show off my status to the other villages. It's common in my culture to take a second wife to show this as well, but," he laughed, "a farm seems like much less trouble to be in."

"Don't be so sure," said Buno. "these criminals that claim to be fighting the Water Tribe have hurt or killed a lot more of their own people so far, all in the name of the greater good."

The greater good.

It's amazing how meaningless that could be, and how both sides at any given time could invoke its name to ward away evil spirits.

Contact came at 0700 the next day

The first things we heard were the distant sounds of gunshots. It wasn't an unfamiliar sound, and every one of us did a double take at the noise.

"Go time, people!" shouted Hei Bai. "Everyone on me."

Hei Bai jumped onto his thermal imager and began looking at the village below, then took a reading with his laser range-finder. Chang started looking through his set of binoculars

"They're… They're killing the farmers!" said Chang. "We need to do something! We need to get down there!"

"Hold your ground, Chang." Hei Bai said. He turned to his radio. "Jian-Actual this is Jian-One. We have confirmed sighting of fifty plus hostile foot-mobiles in village to the South-East of our location. How copy?"

*Bzzzzt* "Solid copy, Dagger-One. Reinforcements are on their way – ETA five minutes. Wolf-bats are already in the air and are being redirected to your location. ETA one minute. You are to remain at OP and direct Wolf-Bat till reinforcements arrive. You will then direct the landing zones for reinforcements to provide stops and a sweep line. How copy?" *Bzzzzt*

"Solid copy, Jian-Actual. Jian-One out." He turned to us. "We're going to hold this hill and call down the pain on the insurgents."

I looked over my shoulder and saw it coming in low and fast. A small powered glider, armed with rockets and machine guns – the wolf-bat. From our OP I could see tactics the Jians used in action. Jian-Actual had patched in Hei Bai to speak directly with the wolf-bat's pilot. Hei Bai guided it in over the hilltop straight to the heart of the insurgent's current position. a wispy trail of smoke fwooshed from the wolf-bat as it fired a rocket at roughly the middle of the insurgents on the edge of the village. The wolf-bat fired another rocket at the same target and a dense purple smoke marked the area. The wolf-bat came around for several more passes at the stunned enemies with the staccato bursts of its machine guns.

Two minutes passed. I looked up just in time to see a fleet of aircraft pass over head. These ones were called auto-gyros. They had a propeller in front, just like a regular powered glider. However, instead of two wings, they had three. These wings were on top of the fuselage instead of the side, arranged like spokes on a wheel. They were free to spin like a wheel as well. As the propeller pulled the auto-gyro forward, the wind passing through the wings caused them to spin, generating lift. They weren't very fast, but then again that was the point. They could go so slow without stalling that the squad they were carrying could jump out of them from low altitude and remain unharmed. A lot cheaper and safer than riding in a 'humming bird,' too.

The doctrine followed by the Jians would make an airbender proud. The soldiers assigned to counter-insurgency were lean, light, fast, and highly mobile. The first auto-gyro to come in was a gunship. It carried a machine-cannon – a weapon similar to a machine gun but firing 20mm exploding shells. This weapon was operated by a door gunner and mounted on the left side, meaning that the pilot could only make left hand turns it engaged the enemy. The gunship saw the smoke, pulled up to an altitude of three hundred meters, and began orbiting the battlefield. The gunner fired his cannon at fleeing troops in bursts of three. As he fired there was a noticeable delay between the report and the impact.

*DAKADAKADAKA*

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

*DAKADAKADAKA*

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

After action assessments were studied meticulously and they showed a consistent behavior among the insurgents. Once reinforcements showed up, they would 'bombshell,' scattering in all directions and then escape to regroup later. The Wolf-bat's job was to scare them long enough for the reinforcements to get into position and use the smoke to mark the center of their bombshell. The pilot of the gunship used this to figure out the best center of orbit, but the pilot had to be very skilled to succeed: AAAs also found out that the insurgents moved at an average of 150 to 200 meters per minute. The pilot had to constantly widen the center of his holding pattern.

Next came troop transports. They came in low and orbited the perimeter of the town at an altitude of only ten meters. One by one, Hei Bai radioed the first four and told them the best places to set down their troops. These troops were to form stop lines. A panicked fleeing enemy would, in most cases, try to follow the natural terrain such as ditches, riverbeds, or the valleys between the foothills. The next two transports carried the troops that would form the sweep line. This line would start at end of the village and slowly work its way across from one to the other, killing or capturing all insurgents that were trying to hide or were caught inside the village by the stop lines.

Once they dropped off their troops, the transports would fly away to closest incoming convoy of reinforcements, scoop up some riflemen from their trucks, and fly back to the village to get them to the fight even faster. It was remarkable to me how quickly the Water Tribe came up with these tactics, and let no one doubt that in practice these tactics were devastating to the troublemakers. But nothing was ever perfect. And nothing _ever_ went according to plan, either. Five minutes after the sweep line set down, we got the call.

*Bzzzt* "Jian-One, this is Jian-Actual. The sweep line has taken a casualty and is requesting aide to fill the line. Move rapidly to grid-square provided and continue the assault according to our time-table. the gunship and wolf-bat will take over as combat controllers and forward observer, respectively. How copy."

"Solid copy, Jian-Actual. Alright boys and girls, it's show time!"

Koko charged her rifle, "lock and load baby! Woo hoo!"

The five of us leapt to our feet and began vaulting down the hill, heed to the sound of gunfire coming from the village below us. Wait, did I say five? There should be si—

"Out of the way, pretty boy!"

I dodged to the side just in time to avoid Peng as he raced down the hill at break-neck speeds using his earthbending like a mountain board beneath his feet.

I looked at Hei Bai. Hei Bai looked at me.

He shouted, "Koko!"

"On it, sir," she responded. She summoned an air-scooter and flew down the hill to catch up to Peng. I guess two is one and one is none, after all.

Fifteen second later, the rest of Jian-One reached the skirmish line. Koko and Peng were taking a knee and securing the area. With a wave of his arms Peng had erected an earthen berm to provide us cover.

Hei Bai spoke, "Form a line. Three meter spread. Guns up. Keep visual contact of the people on your left and right at all times. We'll move as fast as we can while staying together until we catch up with the line. Be ready for anything."

The pace was slow. One step at a time we waded through chest high grass. The insurgents could be anywhere at any time. We could hear the sound of sound of gunfire all around us, but these were just ambient noises like the sound of cicadas in the summer. Then I heard a snap and everyone instinctively dropped to their knee. The bang of gunfire isn't what you need to watch out for; the snap, however, is the sound of a bullet flying past your head.

We continued moving forward through the grass in a duck walk. Every so often, one of us would stand up and take pot shots at figures running through the grass. Then things go frantic. Point blank range, two insurgents lying in wait leapt at us from the grass. The first was cut down in a hail of bullets. Just as I was caught reloading my rifle, the second lunged straight for me with a knife in one hand and the other hand in an open grasp. I threw my rifle behind me to keep him from grabbing it and put my hands up in front of me to counter. He came straight for my face with the knife. I leaned my head to the right. He slashed again. Leaned to the left. He stepped back. I shot a blast of fire at him. The earthbender blocked it with a wall of dirt and then lunged straight through it.

This time I parried his knife attack. A large windmill motion with my left hand pushed the knife away from my body. I followed through with the sweep, wrapping my arm around his, securing his between my armpit and elbow. I twisted my torso upward and there was a sickening crack as his elbow hyperextended. His head shot back in pain as he gasped, and I gave a chop with my right hand to his exposed neck. I shoved him away from me and got back into a defensive fighting stance. Immediately the man was tackled by Buno, and in quick succession Chang plunged his kukri straight through the man's heart.

"That was a close one," I said.

"Alright everybody," said Hei Bai, "let's get back on the line."

*BZZZZT* "This is Stopline Three to Jian-One. We just routed several insurgents. They look like they're headed you're way" *BZZZZT*

"Yeah," said Hei-Bai, "We're already well acquainted"

I turned around to grab my rifle and… it was gone.

Peng said, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

I looked ups to see him holding my QBZ.

I walked over to grab it, "Thank you."

I held out my hand to accept it. He held the rifle out with one hand as if to hand it to me then dropped it at my feet and started to walk away.

"Peng! Hiro!" shouted Hei-Bai. "Do we have to start doing trust falls? Both of you get back on the line, now!"

The rest of the sweep remained unremarkable, though Buno made sure to put himself between the two of us from thereon out.

The rest of the evening felt excruciating in the sun. We swept with the line thru the village. every house. every shed, every drain, and every stone were cataloged and inspected for any signs of hiding insurgents. I wiped the sweat from my eyes, cursing myself for not working on my tan before coming here. And then the commander made us do it again. after about seven hours he felt satisfied with the inspection.

Police and gendarme had come from all over, intermingling with the military personnel, while ambulances awaited the engineers to fully clear roads to the hospital for mines. We had taken a few casualties, but the boys would pull through and be ready for action again in a few months time. A farmer and and his wife had been shot, both in critical condition. It didn't take the police long to figure out the ones responsible and drag them off to who knows where.

Those terrorists that had surrendered and survived were bloodied and sitting in a patch of dirt on the outskirts of the farmstead, surrounded by armed guards. There were about twenty or so of them. Hei Bai and Buno handed their weapons over to us and made their way thru the guards to the terrorists. squatting down at their level, Hei Bai produced his canteen and gave a particularly delerious looking captive a sip. Buno scanned each of the prisoners with his piercing eyes, looking for some clue or sign related to his police work, though I knew not what.

With the remaining water, Hei Bai gently teased it from the opening of canteen and floated it onto his hands. He coached a prisoner to lay supine and Hei Bai then laid his hands on the man, the water glowing as he began healing his wounds. It was certainly unusual for a male water bender to possess healing hands, but I don't know why that would surprise me anymore.

"Hei Bai, this man is the enemy," I had protested to him.

"Those we can convict of crimes will be punished. That's how it is. But many of these troublemakers are only fighting because their families have been kidnapped or they've been tortured for refusal. You know those machine cannon rounds the gunships shoot?"

"What about them?" I asked.

"We don't just fire in bursts to prevent accidents, we fire in bursts because at the end of the day they're expensive. It cost twenty thousand yuan for every insurgent we killed today, counting the fuel, the bullets, the maintenance, medical bills, and everything else. Yet we haven't managed to hurt our real enemy in the slightest, only his proxy."

Putting it in that perspective, I realized that our flawless military victory today was still a strategic failure.

"So the reason I am here is this," said Hei Bai. "I have not come to kill our enemy, but to persuade him. Give me the budget of just one single Fire Nation battle tank, and I will give you a pacified province."

I went to bed uneasy and exhausted, thinking about what Hei Bai had said. I was thankful to be sleeping on a cot instead of solid granite and I was grateful to be alive another day. But in Jia, it was just another Wednesday like any other.


	5. Chapter 5

"...nothing I can do about it. It happened, and it's gone."

I had made my way through the morning haze across the FOB to Hei Bai's tent and stopped outside. As I was about to enter I had caught his voice and began eavesdropping as curiosity got the better of me.

Peng's voice answered, "It's not only his life on the line, It's your life, and my life. what kind of damn rookie would have forgotten to put a sling on his rifle."

I cursed myself. It's true, the most important item behind a soldiers rifle and ammo, is his sling. For the normal soldier it is important because he may throw his rifle to his back and not tire his arms on the march or lose it in the field. But for a bender, a one-point sling is our best friend. We may drop our rifle to perform bending, and grab it back again immediately.

That day on the kopje I had taken it off my rifle to fix a broken clasp!

"Well for one, he's no rookie," said Hei Bai. "But if you don't trust him, that's fine. I simply need you to trust me. Worry about yourself. You're dismissed, corporal."

"yes, sir!"

I ducked out of Peng's sight as he exited the tent. I was going to ask Hei Bai about how the war was going for us, but now I wasn't sure if someone as shamed as I was could do so. If you turned on the news you'd think the whole world was ending - that this was an international crisis that threatened world stability, that things were falling apart.

In Jia, it was a different story. Most people went about their day. Political rallies went on in the capital to protest the treatment of the tribals under Water Tribe leadership. There was also the ever provocative rhetoric of The Party. While their speech and activities were legal, it was a no question that they supported the troublemakers. Maybe they even represented them. Even the Air Nomads of all people's were protesting the rule of Water Tribe over the peninsula.

In the bush it was different still. It was a war, but a slow war. A war without front lines or decisive victories. A war by ambush, not by combat. A war by fear, not by resource. A war by subterfuge, and not by action. The enemy was everywhere. The enemy was nowhere. I'm not exactly sure what winning a war like this would look like.

It didn't matter. A couple more months of this, and I can finally retire

In the following weeks combat became a predictable routine. We'd go out, we'd stop an attack without difficulty, and we'd pack it up for the next day. Being part of the quick response force felt a lot better than having to do overwatch. All the tension disappeared as the calls came. At times, it felt less like a war and more like we were police chasing hooligans who had robbed a liquor store. That was assuming we got there in time, before the insurgents had slaughtered Water Tribe farms or executed alleged tribal traitors, or had raped the women if they were left alive. None of us had much of a stomach for showing up to the aftermath of such attacks.

But the Jians had gotten more skilled at fighting these insurgents with every fight. instead of wasting time with autogyros, the sweep line was now dropped in a single pass of a four prop troop transport. They came in so low that the first paratrooper touched the ground by the time the last one was about to jump; far to low to open a second chute if anything went wrong. In the EKA, paratroopers were lucky to combat-jump once in a career. the average for a Jian was four times in a month. One unit completed seventeen drops in that time frame alone. Still, our true enemies eluded us.

After a month of combat Hei Bai pulled us into his tent one early morning and said, "I have a special assignment in the capital that I have to take care of, so for the next several days you'll be on liberty."

Koko began to smile.

"And I did say on *liberty,* not on leave."

Koko's smile vanished.

Hei Bai waved good-bye and walked out of the tent.

"well that sucks. What can we get away with now that Hei Bai's gone?" Koko asked the group

"You know I'm standing right here!" said Buno

"Oh come on, it's just a question."

Those air benders really had no regard for other people's rules. Whatever. I walked outside.

As I left the tent I ran into a pair of men that were walking past. On seeing his rank as an officer I immediately snapped a salute.

"At ease, soldier," he said. "Wait.. you're one of Hei Bai's mercenaries aren't you? I've heard about you. Hiro?"

I recognized him from previous operations in the province as well. Major Pata Dag-Patta. Pata, like, Buno, was one of the old breed. And like many of the old breed, he was stubbornly proud. You could see it on every inch of his swarthy and angular face. He had grown up in the cold, and as a man had managed to survive the heat of the Jian sun. You can call it nepotism, but he made it to major rather quickly with his connections to the Water Tribe elders. And if you were a Water Tribe's man and didn't follow him because of his upbringing or his rank or his heritage, he was also a water bender.

"yes, sir."

"you can cut the 'sir' nonsense. you're not one of ours after all, mercenary. How long have you been in Hei Bai's lance?"

"About a few months at this rate."

"What did he say that got you trust this madness? Oh don't tell me; he did that sad little rat-trap thing on you, too, didn't he? Jeez, I'd expect that from some sort of corporate team building exercise. I mean, for Yui's sake why are you following him? He's a Swamp bender. He's spent his whole life in the Earth Kingdom; never even been to the poles and he calls himself a member of the Water tribe? If I had my way –"

"Walk away," Buno said as he emerged from the tent, Staring Pata down like a canyon crawler. Biting his lip, Pata turned around and left. Even as a superior officer, he did not have the cultural social status to challenge Buno.

Again, I felt a little foolish. Buno and Pata had stormed off in opposite directions. I was making my trek back to my tent as well, when I heard a voice go "pssst!"

I looked back and say Koko peaking her head around the corner of a tent, and she motioned me to come to her. I followed after her and saw Chang in the doorway of a tent, looking around timidly. Koko walked past him into the tent and he pulled me inside, shutting the flaps behind us. Peng was there, too, pouting in the corner.

"Hey, what is this all about?" I was bewildered.

Chang reached into the front of his chest right and produced a large flask.

He said, "we wanted you to drink with us."

"really? What if we get pulled into a mission?"

Chang began passing out wooden shot glasses, "If we get called the moment we finish, we'll be sober by the time our boots touch ground. Just put on you're liar's-face and have a drink."

He poured a clear strong smelling liquor into my cup.

"It's Baijiu," he said. "Drinking it is an important part of our culture, both socially and for communing with our spirits. It's made from the sacred fields of wild sorghum that grow between the villages. Drink it, it's not Xionghuangjiu after all."

I laughed, "I may breath fire but don't worry I'm not dragon."

I took a sip and coughed, it burned so strong. Peng smirked.

"Lets all take a shot together," Peng said. "To surviving another day."

I clanked my cup against the others and took my shot, clenching my fist at the burn to hide it from my face.

"So you guys still believe in spirits, huh?" Peng asked after our heads stopped spinning

"How can we not, they're real?"

"we know they're real," said Peng, "But we don't believe in them, they have no affect on reality anymore"

"That's because you don't believe in them," Chang scolded, wagging his finger. "There are some things like the spirits that an outsider will not understand like arranged marriage or not having a pension. But I've been happily married for ten years to my only lover, and I have no worries about retiring. I was born in my house and I will gladly die in it one day."

"arranged marriage? No, thank you," Said Koko. "would you mind doing the honors, Hiro?" She had passed a cigarette to each of us and I lit them with a touch of my fingers

"You know, arranged marriage sounds like what you air benders do on the communal farms, only by a different name," I said.

"So, sad-boy!" Koko said looking at me, "you ever had a girlfriend?"

"um, yeah." I scoffed, "too many, actually"

Peng smiled and shook his head. Koko asked, "what, you never go steady?"

For some reason I could never bring myself to. The thought of multiple wives or arranged marriages felt alien to me, but so did the thought of any of those relationships being loving. In the Earth Kingdom, women were equals in the work place, and objects in the bedroom. You got married and had kids so that someone could take care of you when you retired. But I could never bring myself to that point, and ended my relationships with women as abruptly as they had started. And just like that, I took another shot and walked out on them, too.

After two uneventful days Hei Bai had returned and things returned to normal. We'd go out on quick response most days, other time's as 'polarbear-dogs' for patrolling in so-called cold zones where regular Jian forces were told to stay clear for risk of friendly fire either by or against our squads. This went on for another two weeks, until the day that Chang came running to Hei Bai with tears in his eyes.

"My boy, Hei Bai," cried Chang, "They've beaten my boy!"

"Who! Who's done this," Hei Bai shouted.

"It was a whole mob of those trouble makers. They did it to him for not helping them," He said, wiping tears from his eyes.

"is he OK? is your wife and daughter safe?"

"They're safe. He's alive. But they've beat him with switches and humiliated him and I don't know what do!"

Buno was shaking, "We will get these people. I swear on my life we'll get them. I need to get in touch with my police immediately."

Chang sat down on the ground and began to weep. Peng approached him to lay his hand atop his head and stroke his hair.

These were not even terrorists we were fighting against anymore but Jia's own citizens. A compromised member of the community and one of these outsiders comes in, and they inflame passions of hostility against the Water Tribe until they've incited a mob who were to go from village to village and beat or bloody anyone not loyal to the Party. Anyone who refused - or wasn't seen actively participating in the beatings - was a 'collaborator.' The outsiders instructed he mob to beat or even kill these collaborators as well. No one's hands were to remain clean.

"He still refused and took his beating. And even then he managed to outrun them to my village and warn them," Chang cried. "I'm so proud of my boy... I'm so proud of my boy..."

I had seen it before, and it was always terrifying. How fast normal people could succumb to Vaatu and be taken up in violent darkness like a state of intoxication. Hei Bai said to Chang "We'll have a double patrol around your village at all times now. This should never have happened. I'm sorry."

For getting away, Chang's son and family could be a target though his son was already very lucky to be alive. In the headlines of the newspapers, a mob burned a man alive for failing to take part in an anti-Water Tribe labor strike.

Buno did everything in his power to identify who had been in the mob and arrest them without pity. It was tough work. Many of the now sobered youths feared the reprisals more than they wanted to tell the truth. Buno could arrest only so many. It did little good without evidence, something the mob orchestrators knew and planned on. Still, more had been sentenced in that case than any of the previous mobs.

Hei Bai had a different approach. He wanted payback. Today, Jian One had a special mission. We'd leave a hole in a sweep line for the terrorists to escape. Then, we would then hunt them down on foot all across the countryside till they either got to their regroup point or we had overtaken them. We waited with our stuff packed, sleeping in our combat gear, for three whole days before we got the call.

As soon as it came, we rushed to the tarmac. We stood outside the hangar, waiting for the plane to get pulled out onto the runway. That's when I noticed there was something in the bushes next to the hangar. I crouched down to see… it was a small black cat. It mewed at me, reached into my ruck and grabbed a piece chow, and presented it to the cat. It was cautious for a second, and then began eating right out of my hand.

"What are you doing, Hiro?" Buno said. "Black cats are bad luck."

"Yeah, but it's good karma."

And in my opinion it was good luck, too. Back when I was seventeen I lived in an apartment block in Ba Sing Sei. Random compulsory service began at age sixteen, but the Earth Kingdom government offered a program to stimulate the economy. Citizens who had a steady job could hold off on service till they were twenty (assuming they passed the quarterly values exam). While I lived in the apartment, there was this random stray cat that lived in the area.

He was a curious stray, like he grew up not knowing how to be a cat. And growing up, whatever that is supposed to mean for him, was difficult. He was missing his left eye – it had been completely covered over in fur. Veterinarians said that it must have been infected so badly that it had burst open from the pressure. One of his ears was permanently fused backwards giving him an odd, almost quizzical, expression. Vets said that one was from a bad case of frostbite. He was emaciated, and you could see his ribs on the parts of his stomach where fur had fallen off in clumps. And on top of that there were scars from previous fights, probably over food. The end of his tail was missing too. He had given up fighting for food and had instead started eating out of dumpsters. A lot of the tenets and neighbors didn't take kindly to this, and they would spray him with their backyard hose-pipes. Of course he didn't know how to be a cat and run away hissing from water. Instead he lowered his head and took it until that person had gotten bored and gave up rinsing him.

I was walking home from work in the factory after my 'quarterly' on the day Rando found his way into my life. Many in the Fire Nation know of and begrudge that every corporation doing business in the Earth Kingdom has a Party member on the board of trustees with ultimate veto power over even the executive. But what most of them don't know is even the Earth Kingdom employees are subjected to the Party human relations representative. So every quarter, all the employees would shuffle into HR for their assessment. It was identical to what people in the Fire Nation or Air Sovereignty would do for a job interview, but with a couple questions about Party values tacked on at the end. It was easy, as we all knew what answers she was looking for. Even then, the worst that could happen if you 'failed' was you might find that random compulsory service had chosen you that year. Aside from the 'where do you see yourself in five years,' the values portion at the end went a little something like this:

Do you believe all people of all nations in the Earth Kingdom's People's Democratic Republic are equals?

"yes."

Do you believe that men and women are equal?

"yes."

Do you feel you are able to start a family at this time? (for female employees, are you pregnant or breed-ready?)

"no"

Do you honor thy father?

"...yes."

Who is the father of the People?

"the Party."

And who is the mother?

"Kuvira."

Do you think that the revolution was a rather bad time for our country's history?

"This is the birth-pains of our society."

But wasn't Kuvira a reprehensible person at times? Don't you think she did some pretty terrible things? (another trick question)

"At least fifty one percent of what Kuvira did was good."

Do you worship any spirits?

"no"

Do you believe in a God?

"no"

This went on for a few minutes more. After it was over I inhaled and exhaled deeply before stepping outside, surgical mask covering my mouth and nose to keep out the smog. (ten more years they kept saying. Just ten more years and we'll have truly unlocked the power of the atom and then we'll all have energy so clean and cheap and abundant that we won't even have to meter houses anymore. Just give it ten more years.)

I stopped for a second to check my watch and felt something rubbing against my leg. It was that random cat. He looked up at, not making a sound, and locked eyes with mine. I pouted. He won this one, but nothing more. I reached into lunch pail and gave him a piece of a dried meat. I then walked up the stoop do the front door of the complex. I looked behind me to see him sitting there, at the base of the steps, patiently waiting. He meowed. Aw, fine. You win again. I took him in that day and gave him a name. Rando! Rando, the random cat!

I took him to the vet the next day; had him vaccinated and treated for a bad case of worms. Even got him a collar. From then on, I made sure that Rando was healthy and well taken care of. Soon, he regained his strength and nearly doubled his weight. I wanted to make sure that the rest of his life somehow made up for everything that had happened before. Still, he never forgot the days he lived on the street. He never turned down a meal. One time he even dragged off and entire cooked chicken-possum before I had managed to take a bite.

In a way, he changed my life, too, even if it wasn't as much as I hoped I had changed his. I was planning on joining the military back then, just to get it out of the way. Rando gave me an excuse to stay a civilian, even if only for a couple more years. And he was always there for me, between each failed relationship and breakup. I imagined the two of us going on adventures, like all the heroes from stories. Aang had his Momo. Korra had her Pabu. I imagined the two of us, traveling the world, befriending the Avatar. Going on an epic quest, with Rando as our mascot. We would restore balance to the world and correct injustices. The forces of good would defeat evil!Alluring as it was, it was just an adolescent fantasy. I realize now, that nothing's turned out the way I planned.

Things did not go according to plan in Jia, either. After the jump, we tracked the insurgents across the countryside for three days, stopping to rest only after they had done the same. We even let them get the head start to make sure they didn't feel too threatened. Early morning of day four we ran into our first snag. The sound of a rifle bullet crackled in our ears, going high and wide off target. We all wheeled around.

"Hold your fire! Hold fire!" shouted Hei Bai. "put your guns on the ground and hold up your hands."

A second later I saw why. A small boy ran up to us, holding a gun. He was wearing short-shorts, a tee-top, and a comically over-sized ammo vest. The rifle looked like a joke in his hands, too. I'm surprised it didn't knock him over when he fired at us. A boy, just like Chang's.

"Dad! Dad!"

"I'm coming, son! Keep the gun on him!"

The father told his son to go back in the house. Hei Bai had the unfortunate responsibility of convincing him that our motley crew were members of the military and not the same insurgent group that we were after. Radio calls were made. K-cars were about to be scrambled in response to 'terrorist activity.' But they were thankfully aborted at the last minute. Dagger Seven, who were overlooking the farmer's village and saw everything happen, had to break their hiding on the hilltop to come down to talk with him. Things weren't settled until Du Lin had been called on the radio and berated every single party involved. Just another day on the job.

As a soldier, you're used to getting shot at or threatened with violence. When it involves children, it's something that's much harder to shake off. Usually they're slaves, child soldiers. This was different. These were the good guys. This was a father and son desperate to hold on to their farm. It wasn't about a patch of dirt growing lettuce, it was about rights. It was about dignity. Something the Water Tribe hasn't received in a good fifty years.

All in all, getting stopped by those farmers had helped us, more than anything. It lead the people we were chasing to believe that we were no longer on their tail. They couldn't have been more wrong. Buno didn't need weapons to hunt. Buno would simply follow his prey for kilometer upon kilometer – never sprinting, never walking, no matter how far ahead the quarry went– until it had collapsed and died from exhaustion. This time we were hunting humans.

Thirty klicks we followed him before Buno told us to stop. There was a clearing where the vegetation gave way from waist high plants to shrubs and ground cover. There were several trees about four hundred meters from our location. That was where our prey had stopped. Hei Bai passed the binoculars to me.

"You see what I see, Hiro?"

"five insurgents we were tracking, twenty more at the rally point," I said.

"Look closer, tell me what else you see about the insurgents?"

Some of the men, about seven or so stood out from the rest. Better posture. In better shape. All around more composed. "Looks like we've got some of the insurgents' handlers. What should we do, sir?"

"For now, nothing. We observe. Any chance they know we're on their tail?"

"Not likely," said Buno. "we're downwind and I can smell them from here."

"Any chance we can get a better angle on them?" asked Koko.

"Wouldn't risk it. We can see them fine, but you haven't seen the terrain. The field in front of us – that's all poison ivy. And those guys are knee deep in it. They're either crazier than you, or they're just stupid."

Poison Ivy was no joke. Not only was it miserable, but it is a serious threat to combat effectiveness. The amount of wash-down and cleanliness procedures that they would have had to follow could be nothing less than religious in devotion. If they wanted to keep prying eyes away from their rally points and weapons caches, there couldn't be a more ideal place.

"Sir," Peng said while looking down the scope of his rifle, "you should see this; it looks like they're doing something."

Hei Bai pulled out another pair of binoculars, and I held onto the pair in my hands.

The suspected handlers began what looked like shouting at the insurgents we had been following. There was a sudden movement among them. We saw the flash first, and the reports came a few seconds later.

"Have we been compromised?" said Chang, "Have we been compromised!'

"They just killed all the troublemakers we've been trackin'," said Peng, "They're all dead."

Hei Bai didn't say a single thing. He kept focusing on them through his binoculars.

Buno, "They know we were following them. Insurgents must have told them so. They don't know we're still tracking them. No way"

Koko said, "Hey do you do smell that?"

"Smells… like smoke"

I could see it now; a fire had been started where the insurgents were.

Hei Bai barked, "Everyone. smokemasks. Now."

"What do you mean? I don't have a respirator," Peng protested.

"Masks for everyone are in my ruck. Get them on and call in casevac, or we're dead right now. Do you understand!"

"What's going on?" Asked Koko, "I don't underst-"

If any of us hadn't figured it out before, we all suddenly did in that instant.

The field before us was poison Ivy.

We were all down wind.

That was the last time any of us made fun of Hei Bai for the amount of spare equipment he carried with him in his rucksack. As soon as I had put my gas mask on, the wind picked up. I was almost immediately enveloped in thick grey smoke. I stumbled around blindly for what felt like hours before Koko found me. She collected myself and the others in poison-free bubble of breathable air. if it wasn't for Hei Bai's and Koko's quick thinking, we'd all be dead.

Five days. Five days I've spent strapped to a hospital bed in Capital city. Maybe I did jinx the operation after all. Some of us, of course, were luckier than others. Koko was able to keep almost all the smoke off of her body from the start. Buno was naturally immune to ivy.

"How are my soldiers favorite soldiers doing today?" there was a hearty laugh that followed that question. I think he was laughing at our misfortune.

"I'm itching, Buno," I said, "I'm itching really bad."

"That's good! Ha! Ha!" he said. "It means you aren't dead, my friend."

"B-Buno?" It was Hei Bai. He was strapped down to the hospital bed next to mine.

"Yes, Boss?"

"Buno! You lucky polar bear-dog, you!"

The two of them started giggling like school-girls.

"Can you do me a favor, Buno?"

"Of course, boss."

"Can you… scratch my belly?"

"aye, boss."

I heard the sound of someone smacking away Buno's hand. That had to be 'doc.'

"For Yue's sake, Buno," the old doctor said. "I've spent the last five days giving spongebaths to grown men. I aint gonna give them a single spongebath more than I have to! My patients are strapped down for a reason, Buno."

Koko's voice now, "Must be horrible to be in that bed right now. All that itching, and itching, itching all over." She was grinning, too.

"Shut! Up!" Peng shouted, "please, shut up."

"You two, got really lucky, you know that?" said Hei-Bai

"You all got lucky," said Buno, "We should be dead."

"Takes more than that to kill a Jian; Jians never die"

Peng said, "Our luck could be worse – we could've been up against the Oni of Si Wong." Everyone laughed.

"Yeah," laughed Chang from two beds over. "Maybe even the Avatar himself's one of the troublemakers"

Good joke. Everyone laughed. If either the Avatar or the Oni of Si Wong were hiding out in the bushes, the Jians must have really made some enemies.

"Well," Koko said. "Buno and I have still got to fill out our after action assessments. The commissars won't stop breathing down our necks about it. Get well soon, boys"

Without warning she jumped onto Buno's back and shouted, ''Yip! Yip!" He rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath. But he submitted to Koko's piggyback ride.

There was one good thing to come of this: I finally got my chance to speak to Hei Bai one on one.

"When I talked to Du-Lin she told me something very interesting about you, Hei-Bai."

"Oh, really?" He said, turning his head so that he could see me from his hospital bed. "What?"

"She said you hand-picked me. Said she didn't even want to pick me, but you persuaded her to. You're a captain. I dug up what I could about you on my off time, records say you served in the EKA, but don't provide rank."

He rolled his eyes, "did Dag-Patta put you up this?"

"No." Yes.

I swallowed and continued.

"I'm guessing by how old you look that there's no way you could have even made it past Major. so how did you cozy up to the High Chancellor so well, huh?"

"It's my pearly smile," he said winking.

"Then why did you recommend me."

"Because I know you. We've met before, Hiro. Not in person, mind you, but I have met you. I know all about what you've done, before you left the service and after it, and before it. I know the things they put in black ink, too; You've got quite little resume, and quite a skill set, Hiro."

No! no! no! no! no! no! no!, "Special operator records are secret! How in the name of Raava did get your hands on that?"

"Oh, Nuh-no. Can't tell you how, Hiro; only why. I'm not asking you to like me. I'm going to keep you in the dark. That you can count on. But I'm still going to ask you to trust me, Hiro. If I tell you to jump, will you take a leap of faith? The situation is a lot more… complicated than it would seem. And I need you on my side, to help me do the right thing. If you have any misgivings, I really do believe we can win the war, but I'll need your help. Do the right thing, Hiro."


	6. Chapter 6

"I won't tell Peng about the rifle. It'll be our little secret," Hei Bai chuckled to me as we prepared our gear. It was our first operation since leaving the hospital, where we had stayed for two weeks. I can't imagine the pain I would have felt had the smoke of those fields entered my lung. I had heard medics talk of industrial accidents before. I can't imagine a worse way to die either than to be beset by chemicals. Panicking in the smoke for a respirator, I had discarded my rifle the moment it snagged on a branch. For what it's worth I was using a sling this time.

Hei Bai had given me the Jian standard issue rifle as a replacement. The Fire Nation Firearm, Automatic, Lightweight - FN FAL. Chambered in the in the powerful 7.62x51mm Sato cartridge and fed from a twenty round magazine. As the previous owners of Jia, the Fire Nation had left a trove of arms behind that picked up by Water Tribe security forces. The FAL's straight and elegant lines contrasted the knotty curves of my QBZ. The FN FAL was also more effective at range than the QBZ, while was less effective in close quarters. After all, most people hesitated to close the distance with an enemy that can melt your face off with the flick of their wrist. But the long sight lines and vegetation of the Jian landscape suited the rifle. The Jian's had made excellent use of it.

"It's a better rifle anyway," continued Hei Bai. He chuckled again. "Besides, children won't mistake you for terrorists this way."

This first mission had started like any other. We were riding in the reinforcement convoy on response to another terrorist attack. Everything was routine, until a hummingbird landed beside our truck with great haste and Hei Bei urged us all on board. The Humming took off before I could pull both my feet inside and raced at top speed to a Kopje overlooking the village. I could not speak over the roaring of the rotors, but I knew in that instant we were heading for the overwatch. I knew it wasn't good either.

After circling the hilltop and seeing no signs of motion, the hummingbird descended. We hopped out, rifles still at the ready. What we saw was a bloodbath. beneath the camo netting, the entire overwatch was stained in blood. By the looks of it, who ever had done this had caught them by complete surprise. The work of professionals; the handlers, the outsiders, the elusive true enemy of this war.

In their dugout, against a stack of sandbags, a pair of Jian soldiers lay slain at their posts. One a member of the Water Tribe. The other a tribal Jian native. Their fates intertwined. Both shot through their hearts; their blood had flowed from their bodies and pooled together inseperably and indistinguishably into a single a single dark puddle.

For a while the first plane to respond to an attack would make its approach to the village by flying directly over the heads of the overwatch team. The attack plane would see the battlefield from the overwatch team's perspective while they guided it in on final approach. Time was of the essence and this saved precious minutes. But our enemy had figured this out, and they had used it to backtrack to where our team had hidden. This was the first major casualty on our side. The Jians had killed or arrested troublemakers in droves but had yet best their masters. One-nothing, terrorists. Once again the Jian's would need to change strategies immediately.

This tragedy was great enough that it demanded we meet the chancellor once again.

"I can't do this, Hiro. I can't freaking do this!" Koko protested, her voice cracking like a child. She tried her best to stand in high heels as she wobbled back and forth. An ill-fitted orange Cheongsam clung poorly to her body. I don't think it was even hers. Without a hat, her blue arrow tattoos - an air bender rite of passage - shone brightly on her shaven head. She looked at me for sympathy.

I shrugged, "What do you think I can do about it?"

If she could have done it without falling over, I'm sure she would have slapped me. She paused for a brief moment to scrunch her eyebrows together in consideration. Instead she stuck out her tongue at me, giving me the akanbe with one hand and performing another rude hand gesture with the other.

"Stow the chatter!" Buno barked, "Front and center."

We all snapped to attention (Koko tried, bless her heart, and almost fell over). A soldier opened the doors to Du Lin's office. We stepped inside.

"Well, I'm glad to see everyone is dressed…. appropriately this time," Du Lin said.

Somehow I think that comment was addressed at me. But what caught my eye was seeing the infinity pool through the windows behind her desk. It seemed to connect the to Capitol grounds to Dragon Tale fjord - a continuous path of water from the High Chancellor's office to the ocean. I wondered, did the Fire Nation build that when they made the building or did Du Lin order it? I wondered how much something like that cost.

Then I noticed that in the corner near the honor guards was a plain-clothed man. He looked to be a native by his complexion and features.

"So it was indeed your squad that was first to respond?" Asked Du Lin.

"Yes. We secured the hilltop but found no trace of the attackers. No casings. No signs of bending. Not even any footprints. only bullet fragments recovered from the bodies."

Du Lin continued to face Hei Bai but her eye's glanced over to make contact with mine, "Could a human do such a thing? Not a demon?"

Hei Bai said, "it depends on how strongly you believe in demons. Thein Kyu?"

The plain clothed man stepped forward, "Ma'am. Some of these insurgents are indeed well trained from beyond the borders, but none are trained as well as these people. I have no doubts that your outsiders have done this."

Hei Bai nodded.

"Simply put, they have so far bested us, despite all those that we have killed. We cannot let their transgression go unpunished," said Du Lin. "There is also the matter of the human heart, and whether or not we control its high ground. It is a front of the war the we must win."

"No," Said Hei Bai. "It is the only front of this war that actually matters. We hold it for the moment. But our control is slipping. We'll lose it by the next election at this rate. If we keep our efforts up we'll exhaust these troublemakers, but not until after then."

Du Lin scowled. "Chang! You are a native, yet you believe in this fight?"

"Of course, madame," Said Chang. "This fight is my fight."

"Lieutenant Nguyen!" Du Lin said, "where is your place in this war?"

The lone female honor guard stepped forward, "Ma'am, those… trouble makers.. They have slain my husband and brought shame to me and my village. I have joined the military as the lone educated member of my village and refused to either throw myself on his funeral pyre or rest until our honor is restored."

Upon her saying this, Thein Kyu diverted his eyes away from her and to the floor.

"I have left the native peoples of Jia alone to practice their cultures, as they wish to be left alone to practice their culture. I have given them all vaccinations and access to medical care. Those that wish to come to city and share our wealth may come here. Those that wish to vote have access to schools. What more can I do?" Du Lin asked no one in particular.

Kyu answered. "It is precisely because you have left them alone that the troublemakers are winning. The cities and their Water Tribe peoples and their fate are a very far away place. I am sure that many of them truly appreciate what you have done. But it is a question of getting an education years from now versus having your arm chopped off tomorrow. If your life is so disconnected from the Capital, then the choice should be obvious. If you want them to feel a part of this country, you should strive to bring true equality. Even give them the vote."

"This war has nothing to actually do with the vote!" Du Lin protested.

"Then you have failed to understand this war as a war truy is. A war is not only about killing or terrain. If the world believes that this war is about the vote and persecution then it is so. This is something my handlers understood very well, and it was why for every village we sacked we handed out copies of Quotations of Chairman Kuvira in another."

The pause could fill a lifetime.

"All war is based on deception," Hei Bai interrupted the silence. "No. All war is based on perception. It doesn't matter if the treatment of natives and the war we are fighting are two separate issues. They have been made to be seen as one in the same."

After a moment to think about what Hei Bai had said, Du Lin's brow furrowed, "Damn them all. All this trouble, because of voting? Peng! In the Earth Kingdom, do all citizens not have the right to vote, but for a candidate groomed and hand picked by the state's only Party? Hiro! In the Fire Nation, do all citizens not have the right to vote, but only because they are a nation that has expunged all minorities and outsiders? Koko! In the Air Sovereignty, do all citizens not have the right to vote, but only because non airbenders are not even recognized as citizens in the first place? I do not grant the innate right to vote. But all the people within Jia are fully Jia's citizens and may earn the right to vote with an education. This is a requirement I put before the Jian citizen both native and Water Tribe alike."

"...why don't you," me and my big stupid mouth "Just give them all the right to vote."

"That's absurd!" she spat at me. "I am not some petty tyrant trying to win a popularity contest. I am trying to build a lasting home for my people that will persist long after I am gone. We need long term planning. We need the people to make educated decisions. For example, agriculture has brought us immense wealth. But what happens if the Earth Kingdom finally figures out viable hydroponics? What happens if the climate continues to become even more arid? Problems that require much deliberation and planning. It's why I'm trying to build the solar farms. Forward thinking, not some charlatan trading handouts for votes."

Thein Kyu said, "say what you want to say, but the support of the tribals is waning. And so is the sympathy for your country abroad."

Du Lin said, "Then both you and Hei Bai know what we must do."

"One must go for the throat when hunting boar-q-pine," Buno said.

After all, it was Buno who deserved credit for this mission we were now preparing for. It started with a police case of elephant-mandril poaching. As a ranger, he had meticulously tracked the changes in grazing patterns, the numbers per week, and the distinct lack of footprints or brass casings. Only a single spent case had been found in three months: EKA standard issue for the QBZ.

Not much to go, it's a rather ubiquitous cartridge. But what sort of a poacher would take the meat from an elephant-mandril and leave the tusks behind? That is how we found the source of our troublemakers. And with help from Thein Kyu or one of the many turncoats like him we also pinpointed the most likely exact location of their camp. It was on top of one of the many hills to the west, but this one had a basin on it's summit. In such a formation over one hundred men could hide completely unseen. Du Lin ordered the mission immediately, and Hei Bai orchestrated it. No wonder it was going to get us all killed.

"This is nuts," said Koko. "This is nuts for spooks, and spec-ops. This is even nuts for an _airbender"_

"I know it's crazy," Hei Bai said. "That's why it will work."

No amount of training in the world will ever you prepare you for Hei Bai's nuttery. Today, we were going to jump out of Hummingbird at over one hundred kilos per hour. Without a parachute."

Peng said, "It's not just crazy, it's stupid"

Hei Bai said, "what's the matter, is the great and powerful Peng not up to the task?"

Peng's insult must have bruised Hei Bai's ego. Could that really be possible? Could it be that Hei Bai himself planned this entire operation?

"No it's not." Buno answered Peng. "I know those hills like the back of my hand. The vegetation's perfect. The angle of the slope is perfect. Nice and cushy but not too slippery. Math checks out, too. You can argue with Hei Bai all you want, but the math is math. Don't take my opinion on it either. This is something people a lot smarter than me figured out, and I trust them a lot more than I trust me"

"Look, team – I know I'm asking a lot from you, but you know full-well what we're up against. These guys are seeing everything we do. The only thing we have left is the fact that they're so secure about their ability to see ten steps ahead of us, that they won't see the play that's directly in front of them. I don't know about you, but after that stunt they pulled with the poison ivy, I'm ready for some payback. Are you with me?"

"You know I am, boss," Buno said.

"I know you want payback, Peng," said Hei Bai. "You're always pissed, but you're definitely pissed at these guys more. what d'ya say?"

"Convince me," he said.

"I'll tell you guys what… for whoever's alive when we get back from this operation, the next five rounds of sake are on me."

Peng smiled, "Yeah, I guess I'm in"

Koko spoke for both of us, "Then we're in too."

"Alright then," Hei Bai spoke. "Everybody better be here at twelve hundred. Dismissed."

Of course Buno and Hei Bai both walked away, while the rest stayed behind.

"How low does he think our standards are?" I said. "A crummy pep talk and some free sake? We can get free booze off of Chang whenever we want."

"Did you catch that whole thing about whoever makes it out of the operation alive?" Koko said.

"I'll tell you guys what," Peng said mocking Hei Bai's voice. "If this operation goes bad I'll make sure Hei Bai's the first casualty myself."

As we lined up to board the hummingbird, Thein Kyu approached us and climbed aboard. Kitted out like a proper Jian soldier, the look of shame on his face replaced with a cold and serious determination. He spoke no words, but his eyes spoke volumes. So here we all were, now huddled together in the back of a Hummingbird, linked at the elbows, about to jump out a moving aircraft without a parachute.

"Get ready!" our pilot shouted to us. "Coming up on the drop zone in ten seconds!"

He held out his hand, counting down the time with his fingers. Three… two… one…

He clenched his fist.

The timing had to be perfect. The pilot had to be flying at an exact speed. At an exact altitude. Exactly level. At on an exact approach over the exact right spot on the right hill. If done correctly, the reverse slope would almost match our parabolic trajectory, gently catching us as we slid down the mountain. Too slow, we splatter on the mountain. Too fast, fall in parallel to the curve of the hill, maybe only centimeters above it, and splatter on the valley below. If conditions weren't right the first time, there would be no circling around for a second pass for fear of arousing suspicions.

Oh, well. Time to jump and hope for the best.

I felt my stomach rise into my chest for what seemed like eternity. The ground whizzed past us, barely out of reach. I wondered if we missed, but a few moments later I felt the tips of dew covered grasses whipping the backs of my legs and buttocks. Next thing I knew we were crashing feet first through stalks of wet grass at a hundred kilometers per hour. I kept my legs spread, trying to keep stable. By now, most of us had lost grip with the person next to us. Koko got to the bottom of the hill first, sliding into a wall of tall-grass that stopped her like a pillow. Peng was next, then me and Hei Bai. I stood up and heard the someone laughing,

"watch out below, _kingii_!"

With the force of a freight train Buno crashed into me, knocking me into the tall grass. His weight pinned me to ground, heaving up and down on my torso with his big hearty laugh. I couldn't tell if he was more amused at our kilometer long water slide or my poor luck.

"Please. Get. Off."

"Oh, sorry, Hiro," He said, rolling off of me.

Peng said, "Has anybody seen Chang?"

We all looked up the hill and saw him, walking down to us from about a quarter of the way up.

"What took you so long?" asked Koko.

"I hit the only patch of bare dirt about halfway down the hill."

We didn't see it till he reached us and turned around. The friction had destroyed his pants – at least part of them. For the most part they were intact but his butt was completely exposed

"No… Way!" Koko grinned, "Gees, Chang, you've gotta nice budonk."

Peng rolled his eyes.

"It looks a bit red, too. Spankings aren't your kink are they?."

"Just don't tell my wife and kids about this, alright?"

Thein Kyu stood apart from us, rifle at the ready. His chin up like a hound smelling the air.

"Okay," said Hei Bai, "That's enough, Koko. Everybody get ready move. We've got a long night ahead of us."

For the rest of dusk, we hike up and down the hillsides. At the rate we were moving, the enemy wouldn't have to kill us. The mountains would do it for them. The sky behind us grew dark. The sky ahead of us was set ablaze in orange and scarlet. The sound of cicadas gradually became replaced by the sound of crickets.

As we crested one of the hills, however, a trail of smoke could be seen on the horizon, rising from one of the valleys.

"Hei Bai…" I asked, "What is that?"

Hei Bai said, "Most likely, that's the wreckage of the Hummingbird that dropped us off, probably shot down immediately after making the dummy drop on Hill two two five four seven Bravo."

"You mean…."

Chang interjected, "Well what are we waiting for! We've got to and get that pilot out of there!"

"We can't. Not part of the plan."

"What about the radio?" asked Koko. "We could call a gunship in for an extraction. They'd never know we weren't in that drop."

"Not going to happen," said Hei Bai. "Breaking radio silence is too risky. The insurgents are going to be spending the next several hours combing that hill looking for a spec-ops team that was never inserted. I don't want them getting scattered in a gunship assault."

"How can you say that," asked Chang, "to leave one of our own behind like that, behind enemy lines and wounded, all alone, surrounded by enemies."

"You don't get it. Pilot Hama is dead." answered Thein Kyu

"Y-You don't know that! He could still be alive."

"He does know that," said Hei Bai "Hama getting shot down wasn't an accident. We knew it was likely to happen when this mission was planned."

Peng shouted, "Why, you—"

"You don't think Hama knew the risks? He knew this was a likely one-way ticket, and he _volunteered_ for this mission. This was _his_ choice."

Then, Buno spoke, "I don't like the math on this one either. I knew Warrant Officer Hama. He was a good man. But what's done is done. If we don't get moving now, Hama's sacrifice – his life – will have been for nothing."

"Then we're good," said Hei Bai, "Over that next hill we'll be within range of the enemy. I want absolute light and noise discipline on this one. Understood? Yes? Good."

Chang said, "But—"

"No 'buts.' Let's go."

Hei Bai's noise discipline was two-fold. Yes, we were getting close to the enemy, and noiselessness was important for vital, practical reasons. But secondly, I think he didn't want to give us the opportunity to openly discuss our dissenting opinions on this operation.

We slinked out way across the hill tops. We made our first sighting of the enemy at about 2300 hours. We dodged patrols for the next several hours. It wasn't until 200 hours that we crested a hill and saw their base camp on another hill seven hundred yards away through our night-vision goggles. Camouflage netting had been place to stop detection from air.

"Alright," said Buno, "this is where we dig in, halfway down the slope."

Peng flexed his muscle and carved out a trench across the side of the hill with his bending. We then put up camouflage netting of our own, along with a screen of material designed to make us invisible to any tripod mounted infra-red cameras they may have been using.

we spent the next several days eating MRE's and relieving ourselves into their empty wrappers. Hei Bai spent almost all his time behind binoculars. At least in the afternoon, anyway. From 500 to 1100 hours in the morning, the entire valley was covered in dew and filled with the densest fog I've ever seen. Those were the only time's Hei Bai would choose to sleep.

"Why don't we call in an air-strike? A fighter wing will get here way too fast for them to scatter. They'd never see it coming. Kaboom! Problem solved. forever."

"No good, Koko," Hei Bai said, "There are going to be pieces of intelligence in that camp of theirs. That's the real mission. A golf-bomb from a jet would obliterate nearly everything. Nothing small enough to safely drop has any chance of being effective on its own."

"Well you can't just expect us to _walk_ their, they'd see us the moment we'd start to head down that slope."

"That would very bad indeed – they'd torch their Intel documents immediately."

"well I was more concerned about how they'd be able pick us off with snipers and kill all of us, but yeah, the intel thing would be a real bummer too, I guess."

"Either way, time is an issue," Hei-Bai said. "we make an assault on that base tomorrow or call it all off."

"Whaaat? You don't even have a plan yet."

"No, but I will tomorrow. Get some sleep, We'll be up at 500 hours."

That was the thing about Hei Bai. He seemed to walk a razor's edge between genius and insanity. I could never truly tell if his plans were coldly calculated and manipulative - seeing ten steps ahead of his enemy like some sort of Go master - or if he merely made up everything he did on the fly.

"Are you ready for what's going to happen tomorrow morning?"

It was Peng, sitting on a rock and loading his gun, a large-bore lever-action rifle. A blast from the past, bastardized with modern accessories. Not the weirdest choice I've seen. The slugs were potent and the range would be short. A lot lighter than the autoloaders too. He was a combat-engineer after all, more concerned with barricades and bombs than shooting.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"It's a dangerous game that Hei Bai is playing. If you were smart, you'd take you money now and go home."

"You looking for a larger cut, Peng? You're sudden concern is bit… unusual."

"Well, take it or leave it… my advice I mean. But don't say I didn't warn you."

"So why are you staying then, Peng?"

"You should know why," said Peng. "If you're not careful, you'll become a ghost even if you live"

"Is that what happened to you, Peng?" Thein Kyu interrupted as he emerged from the shadows and squatted next to us. "If Hiro dies, the only money you'll get is Hell Money."

Peng smirked, "I was once K'un. But there is no water to swim in the Si Wong Desert, so I became Peng."

"We will see," Thein Kyu said.

One by one that morning, we lined up in a single file, Buno taking point. I can't speak for the others, but I know I was clutching my rifle with white knuckles.

"Okay everyone," Hei-Bai said, "Put your rifles on your backs. Out come your handguns and a grenade, each."

Everyone shuffled around for a second, looking at the nearest person to see if they weren't the only one confused. All I had for a side-arm was a tiny suppressed snub-nose. But I drew it, and grabbed a frag bomb with my left hand.

Hei Bai said, "When it happens, it's going to be fast and very close. As soon as you see the enemy, knuckleball those grenades right past them and start shooting. You won't have time to grab your rifles; the violence of action will be high. Hiro, no firebending on this one. We can't risk any fires."

Great, just great. There goes any edge I had on the field.

"All right, everyone. Single file. Let's March."

"That was not a suggestion people," shouted Buno. "Move out."

So how does a single lance manage to make an assault on a well-defended camp? The answer was simple to Hei-Bai. Walk straight there. Grenades in one hand and pistols in the other (except for Hei Bai The Nutcase: he had a pistol in _both_ hands). we slogged down the hill, hiked through the valley and groaned our way back up the hill. We were cloaked in morning fog so thick that you couldn't see more than five feet in front of you. That was his big secret. And I hope it obscured us more than it obscured the enemy, because if anything went wrong – and it always does – I was on the very point of the spear with my dinky gas-sealed wheelgun.

At the summit Hei Bai checked his watch then motioned us to stop and said, "You might want to all lay down on your backs right now."

I didn't question it at this point, and I was glad not to. I don't know what sound I heard first, the explosion or the sound of the sky being torn asunder. A blur of motion and hurricane of wind as the jet buzzed our heads. Not even fifty feet over the top of this mountain. It's sight hidden by the fog. It's sound hidden by own speed. I had only enough hearing left to hear the dozens of ricocheting metal fragments ka'pwing around inside the basin. And then few seconds later heard the explosions a dozen times more as they echoed off of the hills. Sailing twenty feet over our heads, there goes an insurgent's charred and shattered helmet. off to land somewhere in the valley hundreds of yards below us.

The horror of it all!

I must give credit to all these terrorists to keep fighting when on the receiving end of such destructive forces. That was no real air strike, just a singular fifty kilo frag bomb. I could not keep control of my bladder but was lucky to not drop my live grenade.

"Now!" commanded Hei Bai. "up and over!"

The seven of us ran shoulder to shoulder up the last ten meters. We heard shouting and whistles and screaming. "Toss 'em now!"

Faster than they could say 'open fire,' six grenades go over the top of the sandbags. We didn't stop running, but jumped into the smog and fog filled pits as we threw the grenades. I jumped onto the terrorist in front of me. Despite the bomb and sonic boom he brought his rifle to my face. I grabbed the barrel with my free hand while stuffing my pistol into his belly. Another reached up to grab at my shirt and I electrocuted him. We began point-shooting our pistols at anything that moved around us. Peng threw up a curtain of dirt to protect us from the the six sets of explosions that went off a moment later.

The air became deadly quiet.

We hopped over the wall and formed up in a line, creeping forward while aiming down the sights of our rifles. An operation like this is all about throttle control: knowing when to give it fuel and move as fast as you can, and then knowing when to ease back on the throttle, fluidly slowing down to a crawl, not ever getting ahead of yourself. A single confused insurgent tried running to where he thought was safe, and was cut down with a wall of bullets. We kept inching forward one step at a time. And then came the breeze.

"Koko, we're losing fog. Bend back our concealment," said Hei Bai

"I'm trying!" Koko shouted as she gritted her teeth and waived. It wasn't working.

Now I we all stood naked in the middle of the pit, carcasses everywhere, with another dozen soldiers spitting distance away. I hit the deck as the bullets exploded their way past my body and wildly returned fire, aiming at nothing in particular. Peng erupted a berm of dirt in front of us, the only thing sparing us from their barrage

Then I saw a massive boulder rise from the earth and float into the air. Peng vaulted over barricade. With a sweep of his arm, he commanded the boulder into motion. Hurtling the boulder toward our assailants, he rode a wave of earth behind it, like an Ember Island surfboard, the boulder soaking up deadly bullets. Peng was smack dab into the middle of a dozen of the enemy. Catching them as they reloaded I watched him fire twice with his lever gun and two of them fell to the ground. A terrorist fired at him and missed, spilling the brains of one of his buddies.

With an outstretched arm, Peng fired several shots with just one hand, spinning the gun around his wrist to cycle it as his other arm bent up another wall of dirt. On the third shot he let the recoil push back on his arm, quick swing his gun up in and arc and then back down, resting on his shoulders. Bang bang bang! He fired his gun upside down and behind his head, like a pop-musician showing off on one of those new 'electric' guitars that all the kids like. For a minute he almost seemed to be – no. That wasn't in the realm of possibilities. But the thought of it stuck there like a splinter in my mind. The dust settled and around Peng there lay a dozen corpses; Koko whispered aloud to herself what all of us were thinking, "The… The Oni of Si Wong.''

By now the rest of us had jumped the berm to join Peng's assault. Chang had run ahead of me and was wearing the same pair of trousers he jumped in with. As he ran, his naked butt cheeks jiggled back and forth. War is hate and anger and death and madness and absurdity, but every once in a while, it's funny.

Peng ejects an empty casing and it lands in one of the insurgents' unblinking eyes. He pulls out a cigarette, cups his hands to his face to light it, and takes a drag. And the entire time, he was smiling.

"What are you looking at ladies!" Buno screams "We have a hilltop to secure!"

No one moved

"…it's secure, sergeant,'' said Chang. "That's all of them"

Hei Bai glared at Peng with anger over how impressed he was with his stunt, but said nothing of it. "Get these bodies secured. Side by side in a line. I want photos. I want this nice and orderly for record books. We don't have a lot of time before more bad-guys show up"

"I'm sorry, Thein Kyu," said Peng. "Was that your fun I was having?"

Thein Kyu did not dignify Peng with a response.

I grabbed the bodies by the feet and Chang grabbed them by the arms, giving them a one-two swinging toss into a pile. These bodies were warm. They weren't some barely tangible 'other' thing, like a skeleton or a desiccated corpse, stiffened with rigor mortis. They were warm and soft and only minutes moments ago they were a living, breathing person just like you. It's something you never quite get over. Chang and I picked up the corpse of one of the insurgents that had been shot in the head, and his brains fell out. Chang almost slipped on them, and ended up kicking his thoughts and memories down the side of the mountain.

"Koko, what are you doing?" asked Buno, "We've got a job to do here."

She stood there, staring at one of the bodies. She drew her bowie knife and grabbed one of the corpses by the scalp

Hei Bai shouts. "Koko no!"

She took her knife and began slicing through the top of the man's head. I dropped the body and ran over to pull Koko off. I grabbed her and yanked her off with as much force as I could.

"Have you lost your freaking mind?" I screamed

She fell backwards on top of me. In her right hand was the bowie knife. And in her left hand… nothing but hair.

"What in Yue's name was that, Koko?" Hei Bai asked. "are you trying to commit a war crime?"

"No, you don't understand!" she pleaded

"Don't understand what?"

"Look!" she said pointed to the body. "Look at it"

"Oh no… It can't be."

And then I saw it. Visible now that his hair was gone, there was a bright blue arrow shaped tattoo on the man's head.

"Don't you get it," Koko said at long last. "The handlers… This whole time… They weren't firebenders. They Weren't Fire Nation. This whole time they were Air Nomads. We've been at war with the Air Sovereignty"

This war had become even less simple.


	7. Chapter 7

The seven of us were packed like sardines into the back of a truck. The driver didn't say a word to us. We were treated like a deadly virus. Of course the driver and the soldiers in the truck 'escorting' us had no idea what we had discovered. I suspect that they were told that if they discussed it they would be tried for treason and espionage. The hours we spent in the back of the truck were spent in complete silence.

But the silence was deafening. The otherwise boring drone of the diesel motor became deafening when it was the only thing to listen to. Eventually it subsided to the other noises that were creeping in. As we drove through the streets of Capital City, we could hear the chanting of protesters

"Two! Four! Six! Eight! We want to desegregate!"

"What do we want?

"the vote!"

"When do we want it?

"Now!"

"This is not about justice - this is about dignity!"

Those were the natives in the streets. Not those from the Water Tribe voting class. I don't think all of them were being coerced by The Party of the Earth Kingdom. Right or wrong, there really was genuine passion. None of them knew what was about to be unleashed upon their country.

By contrast, all of us in this little sardine can looked exhausted and world weary. None more so than Koko. I'd seen eyes like hers before only once, in another airbender I had once called brother...

There were two instances in my career that awarded me Silver Star. The first was my first real deployment, and the second was awarded for my last. The first one I've already started. Maybe I should finish?

"Anti-personnel, tracer, silicate core," Jian Li whispered Korah

"Do you have eyes on target?" Korah asked.

"Five degrees to your left," Jian Li answered

"Negative. "

"look for tree-cancer"

Tree cancer was a reference to a mistake common among inexperienced snipers. They would try to hide behind trees, with their heads and rifle popping up over the roots of the tree. While their bodies remained hidden, their heads would appear to be a knotted, bulbous, cancerous growth on the tree's trunk. Tree cancer.

"Got him… "

"range: eight hundred meters, elevation: seven degrees. Crosswind: four knots. Hold the air."

"holding"

Korah's airbending didn't just make him an excellent parachutist. It also made him an excellent sniper. He could read the air-currents and put a bullet on coin from five hundred meters away in a typhoon. But sometimes an airbending sniper liked to practice more direct techniques. His bending allowed him to not only hold back the wind but create a vacuum between him and his target along the flight path of the bullet. I didn't notice how loud the breeze was until he had stopped it. Suddenly the whole jungle seemed to go quiet

"Take the shot."

"Sir, I think he can see me, he's looking right at me"

" _Take the sh—"_

BANG!

It was a million-in-one hit. Korah received the White Death's bullet the _exact_ moment he squeezed the trigger. The round that hit him passed straight through his scope, knocking his barrel of target. I watched the tracer arch its way across the sky, off target by about twenty degrees. Jian Li didn't flinch, he kept staring down his binoculars. He raised his wrist.

Most bullets are made of lead with a copper jacket and go far too fast to be seen. This one had a tracer, a little tiny flare that glowed bright allowing it to clearly seen by anyone behind it or to the side of it. It also had a chip of silicate in the tip instead of just lead – silicate being the compound that makes up the majority of a rock's composition, of course. With a flick of his fingers he used his earthbending to curve the bullet back on path into the White Death's head. Pop! No time to confirm the kill, this was good enough for our intents and purposes. We'd need to get out of here in a hurry. In a bout ten minutes, we would be—

Korrah!

"I-I'm OK," he said. "I'm alright."

I looked at him, and then his gun. The scope had been completely destroyed. The White Death's bullet had pierced cleanly through all of its optics. The tip of the bullet protruded from the end of it, millimeters from Korah's eye. He was lucky his eye wasn't filled with shards of glass.

"R-really, I'm OK."

We packed up our stuff and raced down the hill to the road. Jet made sure to plant several mines and booby traps for anybody passing through the area. Korah had since slung his rifle over his back and switched to a knife and handgun. He was sweating a lot, even for the heat.

"Are you OK, Korah?"

"I'm," he said to me. "Really, I am."

We ran through the jungle as fast as we could. We knew for a fact that a manhunt was being organized and they would catch us if we didn't move. We hurried as fast as we could, but Korrah kept falling out, kept having to sprint to catch back up to our position. On our through the jungle we came upon a clearing, in the center was a village full of locals. We'd all seen it before. The kind of thing they don't show in the press. Children running around naked because they couldn't afford clothing. Their ribs showing and bellies distended because foreign aid had been stolen by the local warlords. Flies covered them. They did have cattle to tend to, but they were too valuable to kill for food. Rumor has it that when things go really bad they would go so far as to lick up their livestock's menstruation.

"This is _awful_ ," said korah. "This is absolutely awful. This is _disgusting._ " His hands were shaking.

Jian Li grabbed Korah by his collar and pulled him close, "You better harden up _right now_ , Korah! You think this sucks? This is why we're here. Now get motivated, get tactical, and fall in line, or so help I am leaving you here! Do you understand?"

"yessir"

This is what happens to us when our defenses and coping mechanisms fail us. Somewhere on the inside we were still as human as anyone else, but were tasked to do inhuman things. What else, when confronted with the reality of the world we were living in, could we do but break down into a useless crying heap like Korah? That night, Korah saw the world as it really was, not some television show that was seen through his scope. He was no longer removed; he had become part of the world in which he lived. That's why we all had our different ways of dealing with things. That's why I vowed to never let what I see or did get to me. To keep it contained and bottled away, at least until the mission and the fighting was over.

But Korah no longer had his was no longer an outside observer. He was part of this world now. And it dirtied him. Not all fun and games and grabass now is, Korah?

The bullet whizzed passed our heads with a *kapwing!*

"In the tree line! In the tree line!"

"Fall back!"

"Make for the Jungle!"

We all ran for the tree line on the opposite end of the village as our pursuers, bullets licking at our heels. We about-faced and made prone to return the fire as soon as we got into the jungle.

"How are we getting out of this one?"

"We'll peel," Jian Li said, "And then fall back two hundred meters before retreating."

The peel is a tactic used by a small unit to make it look like reinforcements are showing up, even when their numbers are actually falling back. Each one of us, one at a time, fell back about three to ten meters and then moved ten to twenty meters to the left or right before reengaging. This gave appearance that there were many more of us than there actually were. After each one of us had peeled, in the same order we began falling back one at a time about two hundred meters and waited for the rest of our lance. They had no idea if we had retreated or if we were simply holding our fire. It would buy us some time as they mulled over calling our bluff. Jet set some more explosive booby traps on our rally point before we began to fall back. We only made it about a minute before we heard the mine go off. They had either called our bluff or too stupid to realize we made one.

"Hiro!" shouted Jian Li, "You're up!"

Our pursuers we're downwind of us… so was that village.

But I had a job to do. I was a fire bender. I was a soldier. That's what it means to be a soldier; that sometimes some must die so that others may live.

I set the jungle on fire.

Korah's eyes that day, they looked just like Koko's right now.

Single file, they took us into Du Lin's Office. It must have been weird for the honor guards to see us, wearing their parade uniforms, carrying ceremonial swords, valiantly protecting the expensive royal carpets - and here we were walking in still covered in gunpowder and dirt and sweat and blood, most of the later not even ours, and we were still wearing the same fatigues we went into the field with. All of our butts were green with chlorophyll except Chang who still had his naked ass fully exposed in the inner sanctums of the most important building in the entire nation. The fact that Du Lin didn't care was most telling of all.

We stood there in the office for nearly five minutes, unsure if we were allowed to talk, or take a seat given our present condition. And then Du Lin came into the room. Her brow was sweaty. Her hands and hair looked wet; I can guess that she had taken a moment in the washroom to collect herself.

Most plain were her eyes. None of that burning passion. None of that condescension. There were a lot of things her eyes said, but most of all it was fear. Not so petty now, is it, Du Lin? She looked at the honor guards standing silently in the corners of her office. "Go," she said, and they left us alone.

"You're the only ones who know," She asked. "Is that correct?"

"yes, ma'am." Hei Bai said.

"Then you need to tell me everything that happened."

Hei Bai paused for a moment to make up his words

He Spoke. "We inserted successfully five days ago. Our pilot was shot down during his dummy drop and gave his life for the success of the mission. We traversed the slope, and dug in that night on a hillside overlooking the objective. I personally reconnoitered the hostile hilltop and confirmed that they were the actual handlers that recruited the insurgents. three days later, at o' five hundred, we assaulted the hilltop using the morning fog as concealment. At o' five twenty two, we engaged fifty seven the hostiles and, with difficulty, all targets were reduced. All engagements were ceased by o' five thirty."

"OK." Said Du-Lin. "When did you suspect they were Air Nomads?"

"I was expecting them to begin torching their camp. There was also the fact that the fog was blown off of the hill at a very opportune moment. I didn't immediately put it together though. Koko was the first to act on her suspicion."

"Corporal," Du Lin said. "How did you first suspect the identity of the insurgents' handlers?"

"ma'am… I was suspicious because having been a soldier in the Air Kingdom I knew how soldiers in the air kingdom fight. That, and the evidence that Hei Bai found."

Du-Lin asked, "Is she alright?"

"I don't understand?"

"Are you _alright."_

Hei Bai interrupted, "Madam Chancellor, with all due respect, Koko is _my_ soldier and it is up to my judgment whether or not she is fit for duty."

"As you wish, Captain. And now we have some very, very tough decisions ahead of us," Du-Lin said

Hei Bai said, "I can offer you the same assessment as any of your political advisors"

"I know you can"

Hei Bai continued, "Then this is what they'll say. We have proof now of the agent provocateurs. If this was the Earth Kingdom like we had thought most of this time, we'd have to bring it before Republic City. If this was the Fire Nation, as originally thought, blackmail is all that it would take to get them to back down; they don't want to be bad-guys again. But the Air Kingdom has just the opposite set of priorities. They'll find a way to spin this into their favor."

"So," Asked Du-Lin, "We bury it then?"

"We hit that hilltop hard. They'll know we know, and now that their cover's blown they'll step up their attacks."

"So then we bring it to the Republic City council, let the world know. Maybe they'll back down."

"Or maybe not."

Du Lin sighed, "Damned if I do, damned if I don't"

"Of course this doesn't mean that someone else was responsible," Thein Kyu said.

"Did you ever suspect that the Air Nomads were behind this?"

"No. They left no tells. But when did you stop suspecting the Fire Nation?"

"You Know those 'jet' fighter-bombers we've started using?" said Hei Bai. "those weren't left over from the Nationalization. We've been purchasing Fire Nation weapons for the last several months now. Serial number scrubbed off of course, all in secret. They probably knew the Air Sovereignty was behind this from the beginning and have been supplying their rebel colony just to spite the Nomads."

And it was at this moment enlightenment had been attained. The first eye peeled open. Hei Bai had said it before but until now I didn't understand. Warfare is not based on deception. Warfare is based on perception. For every war that you see there is a different war, the real war, that is happening behind the scenes. For every war about spreading Fire Nation ideals, the real war is about maintaining resources for a topheavy economy. For every war about uniting the Earth Kingdom, it's really about political power brokering. Republic City comes to stop an ethnic conflict, it's really about a pipeline and access to the seaboard. Two countries fight over some disputed islands with a population of fifty people and invoke 'sovereignty' and 'people's right to self determination.' It's really about one country trying to distract from problems at home with war abroad, and the other is just trying to save face in the international community.

I had wondered why so many peacekeeping operations ended in complete failure. torching that village for the greater good? well, the war ended in disaster. It should have been obvious. It was precisely because of that lack of selfish motivation that the politicians had no reason to win. You fight a 'war on terror' and if you win your country gets access to a whole tin mine. You would do everything to win that war. But take casualties and spend billions of Yuan to get nothing out of it other than the moral high ground? Of course you'd leave the job unfinished. And if your goal is only to play the hero so you get better treatment at the Republic City negotiating table, then you don't even have to try to win the war - you only have to show up.

And now here is Jia. Caught between the Fire Nation and the Air Sovereignty. The Fire Nation sticking their neck out to supply a rogue nation arms? I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being used as pawns in some else's political squabble. I realized then, too, that's why we were probably going to lose this war. Because despite our disagreements Du Lin was not a corrupt politician with an ulterior motive. She was a genuine and true believer in her cause with nothing to lose.

I began to feel nauseous and the room began to spin.

"...are you OK, Hiro," someone asked?

Koko exploded, "So that's it then? We're just 'at war' with the Air Kingdom? Just like that, and what do you suppose is going to happen to your little country? How in Yue's name are _we_ expected to do anything about this?"

"This doesn't change your mission one single iota. You perform counter insurgency. You will continue to perform counterinsurgency. We are _not_ at war with the Air Sovereignty."

I don't know why, but of all the things that Du Lin said, this is the one that made me lose my temper, "with all due respect, _ma'am_ , you can call this war whatever you want. You can call it counterinsurgency. You can call it a limited conflict. And you can even call it a _police action_ , but make no mistake: this is war, whether you like it or not. Those that have bought the farm fighting your war are just as dead regardless of whatever spinsters decide to call it."

"That's enough. You're all dismissed."

Hei Bai spoke to me as we drove back to our FOB

"I understand what you said today, but I want you to know that we are _not_ at war. Not yet. There are other mercs recruited by Jia – almost like you – and do you know where they end up? Personal bodyguards, protecting farms. But Du Lin asked me to make a dream team. Pick anyone I want. I chose you. I'll tell you why: our goal was to put down a war _before_ it started. We can still prevent this war from spreading, keep the situation from deteriorating. Believe me, Hiro, Some noble work can still be done. Help me do the right thing."

When we returned to the camp it was in a state of celebration. Tacky party lights, candles, the fresh BBQ'd meat. The natives were engaged in some sort of happy ritual dancing and the officers looked the other way when canteens of the sorghum wine made their way out of the natives' vest pockets. Because while we were attacking the handlers themselves, the air force and the army regulars hit a terrorist staging ground across the Jian border. Only a company of men (with the aid of bombers) had managed to kill an entire brigade - thousands - of terrorists.

But they were equally excited to see us, because they had gotten word that we had really taken the fight to 'em and killed the handlers. None of them knew the truth though. We couldn't tell them. But I'm sure they would know soon enough.

I laid my weary head down to sleep and when i stopped tossing and turning I had another dream. Another mefloquine dream, like a fever dream. The ones that are solid and vivid and don't evaporate away when you wake up, like the morning fog shone upon by the rising Sun. I dreamed of my mother, and I was a child again. No. Not a dream. It was a memory.

We were in our apartment. I don't remember how I got there, but I remember I was eight years old and it was a blue skied summer morning. Cicadas were busy buzzing outside and I watched a mote of dust suspended in a beam of sunlight coming through the kitchen window. I watched it too long and didn't pay attention to where I was going. I remember tripping into the counter and knocking a piece of pottery onto the floor, and it cracked and shattered into half a dozen pieces.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Mother looked at me quizzically.

"It's OK, Hiro. There's no reason to be ashamed."

She scooped up the pieces from the floor and put them in the corner of the countertop.

"It's better this way," she said. She grabbed another piece of pottery from the window sill. "Come and see!"

It was a beautiful piece of porcelain, but the most beautiful part of it was irregular lines of gold running through it. No two lines were the same, and it ran like a spider's web, or a series of tributaries in the delta of a river. It possessed a beautiful asymmetry; it was beautiful because it was imperfect.

"Broken pottery is put back together with gold, and is more beautiful than when it was broken. You can't build it pottery like this, because it would look fake; you'd know right away. The pottery can only be made and then broken, before it's put back together. It's an art called Kintsugi."

She showed me another bowl. It was put back together like the first one, but with iron staples. And even though all the pieces fit together perfectly, the result was ugly. No beauty. Only function.

"Do you understand, Hiro? If something is broken, and it is put together again with care, it is more beautiful when it is made whole because it was broken, not in spite of it. Even an ugly bowl, when put back together, is prettier than a well-made and untarnished one. Many people experience hardships, Hiro. But if they learn from them and overcome them, and are made whole instead of being made bitter or simply remain destroyed, they are better than they were before. You might experience hardships, too, Hiro; things in life that are difficult and scary. And when you do, I want you to remember this."

"Like when father leaves us?" I asked.

She swallowed, "…yes, like when father leaves us."

It's kind of funny now that I think about it. What a dumb question for me to ask. Those times weren't anywhere near as bad as the times that he came home.


	8. Chapter 8

"With difficulty, huh? That's the best Hei Bai could say about my end of the stick," Peng complained to me as he walked across the parade ground that morning.

"Since when do you care about my opinion?"

"Because you're smart and you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Damn him. Sure, we were getting paid to kill. I can even do that with a clean conscience. But it's a whole other thing to enjoy it!

"You were showboating," I said to Peng. "But hey, I guess you deserve to, after all; half of people on the FOB now believe that you're the Oni of Si Wong. Feels good, huh?"

"Don't joke about that," He said. He paused for a minute. "But it does have a certain ring to it, huh? I've been accused of worse things. This time it might actually be true."

He wrapped his checkered Si Wong bandanna around his neck. I noticed for the first time that in the middle was a bullet hole and it was stained with blood. I emptied the rounds from my scattergun and placed them in my ammo box.

"You know about Chang's new fame? They're calling him Baboon. Someone made a patch of a baboon with a bright red butt. Han, from Dagger Seven slipped into hi ruck the other day. I really want to be their when he finds it, you know? Just to see what he thinks."

"You shouldn't take credit for something like that, even if you did it."

"What, the patch?"

"No, the Oni."

"Who says I'm not? You never know. It's bad form to brag about doing anything in spec-ops. Like the ancient generals said, 'appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are week, for this is the axiom of success, and all war is based upon deception.'"

"Why do you keep that trophy then?" I said, waving index finger in a circle around my neck. "That's a little macabre, even for us."

"What are you saying?"

"Well there's that bullet hole, so it must've come from some poor idiot you bagged in the dessert. Unless you're unsporting enough to grab a trophy off someone else's kill.''

I didn't know what got into Peng. He froze. His lips trembled. His eyes quivered. For a moment I'm reminded of the last I saw of Rando. And like Rando he suddenly lashed out.

I wasn't in pain, so much as confused. I barely had time to react the fist that came crashing into the side of my skull and sent me straight into the ground. The sky and everything I saw was spinning, but I could make out Peng standing above me, rolling up his sleeves.

All I could think to say was, "Why?"

The ground erupted from beneath me, launching me back to my feet. He grabbed me by the collar and pulled me close.

He swung wide again for my face, but I managed to catch his fist in my hand before he struck me. I look into his eyes and the seconds drag. For the first time since we met he looks… broken.

"Peng, have you lost your freakin' mind! For Yue's sake, we both fought in the Si Wong desert."

I began to arc electricity between my fingers, but then I saw the rock he was hiding, floating behind his back.

"You're a mercenary, Peng," I said. "You don't have values. You don't have grudges. You're just doing your job for the money, just like me. You want to have to explain to your employer why one of their assets is in the hospital when the time comes for them to cut the checks? Make the rational decision."

He froze for a second, mulling it over. Having to deal with the reality of the situation. Then he let go of me, dropping the rock and stormed off. He disappeared into his tent and heard the sound Peng punching his locker until his knuckles bled.

I heard the sound of slow, sarcastic clapping behind me. It was… Hei Bai!

"Bravo, young man."

"Is there something I can do for you, sir?"

"Just answer a question for me."

"What?"

"Why do you let him push you around like that?"

"He wasn't worth the effort''

"Effort? He wouldn't even take any effort. I know all about what you can do. Who you are. What's your real name?"

"You know my birth name is Hou Yi."

"No, not the name your father gave you. Your real name."

"It is Hiro."

"You know, Hou Yi, you really disappoint me sometimes. If you just-"

"Keep it up," I said, "and I'll do to you what Peng was gonna do to me."

And at that Hei Bai turned around and walked away, throwing one of those 'good-bye' waves over his shoulder.

All alone I wondered around the camp. I didn't want to go anywhere in particular, but I started wonder if maybe Peng was right. I'd have enough money to finally retire.

I could always go to the Earth Kingdom again. I certainly had enough money for it. I could be the richest man in the landfill. Back in the land of the smog. The land where the children are run over in the gutter and everyone ignores it to go about their business while their not-actually-concrete styrofoam buildings crumble around them. The land where you don't actually own anything and the government can repossess all that you have at a moment's notice.

No! If I am going to retire I am going to retire well. When I was security aboard that cargo ship we had often made port in the Fire Nation. I remember Fire Fountain City and the others like it. They were cities of insomniacs - alcoholics and workaholics alike. And unlike the cities of the Earth Kingdom they were always clean. The thick haze of smog had been replaced by blinding neon. The grandeur was nauseating. I remember a profound sense of vertigo trying to take in the skyline from ground level. Whether in the Earth Kingdom or the battlefield, I spent my life living with a paper bag over my head and I had been exposed to colors I had not even known existed, all telling me to spend, spend, spend.

In reality it was still the most tranquil place I'd ever been. The office salarymen would work themselves to death willingly without the need of suicide prevention nets, even. some one once said, "a rock does not throw itself, but fire consumes all unless quenched." The Fire Nation culture was very civil because civility meant survival.

You wouldn't think that from the news. It was always hysteria of crime this, youth gangs out of control that. That's the problem with firebending, though. After the genocide a whole generation of people promised to never practice firebending again. Now they were reaping their rewards as the next generation grew up covered in bubble wrap and discovering they had powers of destruction at their fingertips, but were never given any practice or discipline in controlling it.

At the end of the day, that only made it on the news for being the exception. Oh Yue, I hated living in the cities. With enough money I could live out somewhere peaceful in the Fire Nation countryside. Where the mountains meet the seas. Of course I'd need enough money for a forger, I'd have to change my name again. Starting over was the point, after all, wasn't it? Yes. I'd fight this war a little longer, and then I'd never have to fight or want again.

Then I heard a voice that broke my train of thought. A voice that was calling my name. I saw a native soldier beckoning to me.

"Hey! You Hiro? Get over here, friend!"

I approached him and he disappeared inside a rather large tent. I followed him inside the flaps and no sooner had I entered then I was before a sea of cheering faces while a shot glass was forced into my hand and a half dozen natives were patting me on the back and rubbing the back of my head. One of them poured baijiu into my cup until it overflowed as the other's began to shout, "Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!" I took the shot and it burned on the way down. The cheering resumed with greater applause.

"We heard about your mission. Everyone has," one of the natives said. "It's about time someone gave it to those monsters!"

"Three cheers for Hiro!"

"Forward Together! Hip hip hoorah! Forward Together! Hip hip Hoorah! Forward Together! Hip hip Hoorah!"

"You might be an outsider, Hiro, but today you are one of us."

"An outsider?" I asked. "We're both yellow skinned and I am definitely no waterbender; aren't I one of you already?"

The natives looked at me with blank faces before they burst into tears laughing at my.

"No. No Hiro, things aren't that simple over here like they are in the mainland. City folk never seem to understand."

"You don't like the city folk?" I asked, sheepishly

"Do you mean like in the Capital City? Of course not!" one of them said. "Don't worry, they don't like you either."

"I thought Du Lin was trying to make the country a better place for everyone…"

There was more laughing, "forget about Du Lin. Du Lin is not the problem."

"My son," one of them said, "He went to the city looking for work. He is a hard worker. He came back to his village with tears in eyes. He only wanted to work a job to send money back home but everywhere he went he was spit on and no one would hire him. In his own country! Can Du Lin pass a law that says 'you must be kind to others'? I wish it were so but it is not."

"But what of the schools," I asked.

Another answered, "Schools? My brother tried to go to school. I was helping to pay for him, but the closest school was ten miles away and he had to walk there each day. My father could not afford the loss of his work in our village. What good do these schools do us when no one can go to them? I have joined the military to help support my father."

"I have an education and the franchise," a third said. "I even voted in the Party before the war began because I believed in the cause. I still do. But I will not let our Liberation movement be co-opted by trouble makers."

A wave of voice saying "aye!" rang out.

"Then why do you all fight for the Water Tribe?" I asked.

"Fight for the Water Tribe? Never! We fight for our land and our lives today. And we proudly do it alongside the Water Tribe soldiers who are fight for the same reason. We are glad to fight even alongside the likes of outsiders like you because you are willing to risk their blood for our safety and our homes. This is our land. Once this war is long over and done, then we will return to taking back our country. But we must do so as men and not with fire or bullets or hand grenades."

I continued to drink with them. As they celebrated and the conversation changed to a more pleasant topic I asked if Chang had celebrated with them. He had earlier, they said. They tried to get the baboon to be the symbol of our team, but Hei Bai had very firmly said no. As if to smother the joke he released an insignia for our unit in the form of a large bird of prey…. Perhaps even the Magnificent Peng. still, as I left the tent I couldn't shake the feeling that it was wrong to be here.

After sobering up enough to check my watch, I hurried over to Hei Bai's tent. Today was the day of the big reveal, where Du Lin would present her protest of the war to Republic City and reveal the Air Nomads involvement in the war.

"Has it started yet?" Buno rushed into the room and squatted down next to the telescreen.

"Not yet," Hei Bai said as he adjusted the tuning of the tele's antenna.

"Has anyone seen Koko?" Asked Peng as he walked into the room and sat down, doing everything he could to not make eye contact with me. His had wrapped his right fist in a bandage.

"Not sure," said one of the soldiers gathered around the telescreen, "I think she's drinking her paycheck."

"Maybe she's off sulking with Thein Kyu?"

She didn't want to know. She didn't want to see.

"Almost got it," Hei-Bai said. "it's tricky, tuning into a signal bouncing on the ionosphere."

"—and I would like to appeal to this council, and to the Avatar himself that diplomatic action be taken. That the rights of our nation, our people, upheld. That we be treated as equals. We ask for no special treatment. We do not even ask that any action be taken: I only ask that a single action be ceased."

A plethora of whining vomited forward. Whoever told us when the council's meeting would be was off by a whole time-zone.

I could make out from the grainy black and white image the large Republic City council chamber. The whole room was full. Du Lin stood there before the other council members with her aids behind. It looked more like she was on trial than an open forum of discussion. With the graininess of the feed and the black and white color, I could barely tell a single person apart from one another.

"First thing I'm buying… color telescreen," Peng once said when we were talking about what we'd do with our contract money, if we lived that long.

"Color tele exists?" Chang asked, genuinely surprised.

Koko said, "Yeah but it's stupid."

"Says you!"

"C'mon Peng, no one films in color, so you've paid twice the price for what's really a black and white telescreen."

"What about the toons? Those are in color."

"Well…" said Chang, "If I wanted to see a toon, I'd rather got to one of those theaters like they have in the cities. Big screen. Friends. Live band. Why would anyone ever want to sit around their home and watch toons on a tiny screen all by themselves. Besides, don't have electric power in my village yet anyway"

Back in the present day, I saw one of the councilors on the TS rise to their feet. An air nomad.

"This is an outrage!" He shouted, slamming his fist on the table. "There is no proof here that my government was responsible for these series of attacks. You admit readily that the majority of the insurgents were members of the Earth Kingdom by heritage, living on your border. But you find one group of Air Nomads and then you all assume that we are responsible? I thought the world learned its lesson after my people were slaughtered down to a single man.

You have no proof, none, that the Air Sovereignty was responsible aside from those men's heritage. How terrible must your nation be that even airbender civilians will take up arms against it? What kind of a world is it where a state still exists in this day and age that only grants the right to vote to the Water Tribe and denies voting to the Air Nomads."

He turned to the other councilors, "My fellow councilmen, this velvet genocide has gone on long enough. If my people are being oppressed – oppressed to the point that they would need to take up arms against their rulers – then the Air Sovereignty must, and will, use all paths available to her to protect her people both at home, and abroad. We can now all only pray for a peaceful resolution this crisis. The Air Sovereignty votes in favor of the motion for further sanctions..."

I left the room after that. These things drag on for hours, but it was the only part I had to see. Buno followed me out.

"So that's it then, huh? We're finished."

"Nothing is ever finished," He said. "We are all eternal."

"Cut it out, Buno. So how are we supposed to fight against *that*" I said, stabbing my index finger Eastward at some imaginary army just over the horizon. "How are we supposed to win that kind of war?"

"One battle at a time, Brother." He gave a big hearty laugh "I thought you told me we already at war, eh? Then nothing has changed, friend."

"Not a war like this. Not like this. Hei Bai said that our job was to stop war. To snuff it out. To stop the dying before it really started. I've seen it many times and I don't want it to happen here."

"It is a strange world we live in. Those that start wars, those that put the world out of balance, that send countless waves of faceless men to their doom are seen as heroes. Those that truly win are those that manage to prevent the slaughter from ever occurring, and yet they are usually forgotten to history. But make no mistake, the ones who go unsung in songs and succeed before effort and death are needed are the only true winners. This is the Tao. I am not one of those people, but at least I have decided to put trust into Hei Bai. You should know he has big plans for you too."

"Why aren't you one of those people, then?" I asked. "You're strong and wise. Why not you instead of Hei Bai?"

"Then you do not know the true meaning of leadership. There is a tale among the Water Tribe who have not forgotten the old ways, passed down from father to child. The Natives here tell nearly the same story.

Ten hunters make camp on a hill. As one of them climbs to the summit, he is overcome by the beauty he sees around him and begins to dance. The others wish to dance too, but by himself the man on the hill looks like a fool. But one of the nine has the courage to overcome his sense of embarrassment and climbs the hill to see the first hunter. When he reaches the summit, he too understands the beauty and begins dancing. Now there is not one hunter, but two! The others no longer feel embarrassed and make the climb and then they all begin dancing.

Do you see? There is honor in service. Sometimes to lead, you must know when to follow."

As I laid my head down to sleep that night I thought of Buno's words. They gave us all mefloquine pills to prevent malaria. Mefloquine has some unfortunate mental side effects. Irritability. Possibility of hallucination. But mostly intense and vivid nightmares and waking dreams. Of course, these are also all the symptoms of combat stress. I had a mefloquine dream that night. They say if you die in a dream you wake up, so That was my first clue I wasn't the center of that dream. He looked like me at first. Wore all my clothes. Carried my shotgun and a nihonto blade. I thought it was me at first from the hair. When he turned around, I realized it was my father.

My father didn't much look like me. Growing up, everyone I know remarked how much I looked like my mother, Azusa. Of course, my father was never around enough for them to have a real reference point. There were, however, two things he gave me: His green eyes, and his jet-black hair. And now I was watching him running around with a twelve-gauge, shooting at monsters.

They came from everywhere, all at once, thousands of them. But they were weak. One by one, he destroyed them. And when my shotgun ran out of ammo, he switched to his sword. And now the monsters we're getting much closer, close enough to touch him, slash him with their claws or bite him. That didn't stop him; he cut them down like chaff. But eventually he makes a mistake. Eventually he gets tired, and then one little tiny wound after another. Eventually the monsters will win.


	9. Chapter 9

The six of us silently loaded into the autogyro. Hei Bai told us that for now nothing would change. We'd protect the farms, as usual. But the rats grow bolder every day. In the past the attacks had always been aimed at the farms and homesteads and Native villages. Now the people of the cities were being rocked to sleep by the sounds of carbombs. The sounds of Party protests replaced the cicadas in the day. In the villages, too, the raids had turned into a fullborn offensive. Whatever the Air Nomads were doing to compel their minions, they were attacking in force. They came in greater numbers and no longer would they run at the first sight or sound of the aeroplane or hummingbird.

Dear reader, I'm sorry if I've bored you with tales of childhood memories, fortune cookie motivational speeches, or oh-so-touching anecdotes. Fear not, for all of that was about to fly out the window. As soon as the bullets started flying - Thein Kyu's past, Koko's loyalty, Peng, whether it was right for the Water Tribe to be, whether it was right for me to be here - those thoughts all disappear and become meaningless.

"Jian One delta, this is Dao seven actual. We want you to keep orbiting the battlefield until further notice. Break. Jian fife delta: Dao seven actual. Set down and maintain stop line at grid Alpha – six. Over."

"Dao Seven: Jian Fife. Wilco."

"Dao Seven, this is Jian One," Hei Bai shouted over the drone of the engine and the wind rushing past us. He stuck out his head and leaned outside the autogyro to get a better view, holding himself in with a single hand. Several bullets slammed next to his head, but he didn't flinch. "I don't know if you can see this from the OP, but we're about to orbit past grid Alpha – Six. The drop zone is _hot_. I say again, the drop zone is hot. I am requesting permission to drop in with Jian fife. We are fifteen seconds out and it will take another two minutes to circle back around to the LZ if we do not drop now. Over."

Several more bullets slammed into the fuselage of the autogyro, one of them going straight through the pilot's windscreen.

"Roger, Jian One. You are clear to drop."

Hei Bai stepped into the cockpit and pointed to the pilot where he wanted to drop

"Get tactical!" Buno screamed. "Boots hit the dirt in five seconds!"

The autogyro swooped in low and lifted its nose to halt the descent, like a bucking stallion rearing up on its two hind legs. Two meters from the ground, the six of us jumped. Before I could even touch the dirt I could feel bullets whizzing past my face. I hit the ground hard and rolled. Rolled my ankle, too. Suck it up, soldier. I looked over my shoulder and I could see that our ride wasted no time in leaving as soon as we were on the ground.

"Good morning, Dagger Fife!" Hei Bai said between bursts of burpgun fire. "You guys need a hand?"

"How do you know what kind of morning it is?" Said Dagger Fife's squad sergeant.

I looked to my right and blasted two insurgents that popped out of the tall grass.

"They're trying to make it out through this gully. Don't let 'em!"

We all got as low to the ground as we could and fired upon at anything that moved through the gully. Everything in the gully fired back. Bullets whizzed by us. A bullet goes through the arm of one of Dagger Fife's soldiers, but he just keeps firing. They came in waves, one after the other, and began lining up at fallen tree about eighty meters away. Then the real fun began. I went to reload, and a bullet ripped the magazine from my hand. A bullet grazes Peng's cheek and he only seems to get more pissed.

"Dao fife to all air support, we are taking heavy fire and are about to be overrun. "

"Read you fife by fife, Dao fife. Inbound, ten seconds"

One of the two hummingbird gunships - Hammer-Six - swoops by the gully, and turns its left broadside to face the attackers on the tree. For a single second the shooting stops. A second later it starts again. Four machineguns firing simultaneously upon the insurgents from less than twenty meters away. The quad-machine gun makes a sound like the sky ripping in half. The sky holds this time; this time it's the insurgents being ripped in half. And from twenty meters, twenty men are turned hamburger meat in less than twenty seconds.

" Thanks, hammer six. Good guns." Dagger Fife's LT says over the radio.

"These guys are pushing hard on us today," Chang says.

"That's because their handlers are pushing hard on them." Hei Bai says.

"You sure they're here?" asks Peng.

"Absolutely." Thein Kyu answers.

There's a whizzing noise, and a trail of smoke snakes into the air. A rocket barely misses the second gunship.

"That's them. I'm sure of it."

Buno says "Sir, I recommend we take neutralize that threat to the gunship."

"Good call Buno, that's what we'll do." Hei Bai turned to the young LT, "Can you hold the line from here?"

"Absolutely Captain."

"OK boys, let's haul it. Wedge formation and keep it tight."

"Animals are everywhere today," Thein Kyu says.

So we get in formation and run. We ignore the bullets snapping past our ears and run. I ignore the searing pain in my ankle and run. Someone aims a rifle at me but without breaking pace I hose him down with fire, and run. We're so close to our mark. We're so close to our kill…

Sunraker-Two, the high orbiting machine cannon gunship, switches its aim to the source of the AA fire. We're close enough to _feel_ blasts go off, not just hear them.

"this is Sunraker Two" the radio cackles "I'm raining pain all over these guys but I can't seem to get a clean hit."

"Jian one to Sunraker two, hold your fire. They are bending your shells off target. We are coming in for kill on foot. Say again, hold you fire. How copy?"

"Solid copy, Jian one. switching targets."

We were less than one

hundred meters away. Spitting distance.

Hei Bai says to Koko "I'm gonna need you to start blowing these rockets off target, can you do that?""Yes sir!"

Puh-FWOOOOOOOOOSH! Another rocket takes to the skies.

"Koko!"

"on it."

The rocket accelerates straight for Hammer Six, the second helicopter gunship. Hammer Six pulls hard to the right to maneuver, but not hard enough. Koko summons a tiny monsoon, and the rocket curves out of the way at the last moment. Too close.

Except there's one little problem. In maneuvering out of the way of the rocket, Hammer-Six has now maneuvered straight into the path of Sunraker-Two's fire.

It's the usual three round burst. The first shot goes straight into the canopy. Pilot doesn't feel a thing. It's an instant and painless death. He's turned into chili. Second round goes in between the propellers, missing the gunship. Third round strikes the tail rotor.

The tail snaps off and is hanging by a thread. There's dense black smoke spewing from the bird and she's spinning all over the place. You probably don't think a machine can scream in pain. It can. There's a blood curdling screech as the engine desperately fights for life, trying to correct itself by pumping extra torque into a limb that no longer exists.

"I've been hit! I've been hit!" the co-pilot screams. "Pilot's dead. I can't get her to rock back out, I'm losing her."

Hammer-Six wobbles in the air for a moment and then begins knifing sideways through the sky, screaming so close over our heads that we duck. She flies right over the farmstead village, and then falls out of the sky like a brick.

Hei Bai or Buno didn't have to say a single word. We ran straight for the crash site, didn't even bother to get in formation or stay together, we just ran as fast as we could. The bird landed in the middle of the town, right in open. Couldn't ask for a better ambush. Chance of getting killed – high. Chance the crew was still alive – not very good. But that didn't matter. Combat oddly can make you lose your sense of self preservation fast. The lives of those around you matter far more than your own, regardless of whether or not you hate their guts. Maybe it's why Koko could kill her former countrymen, or why Peng hasn't killed me yet.

Even then, we also know what would happen if those animals managed to capture the crew alive. I know for a fact it's why we all chose to run to that chopper. But it was Kyu that ran faster than any of us to that hummingbird.

Thein Kyu arrived first and as soon as we caught up to him we turned 180 degrees and got down in the dirt. Hei Bai steps into the hummingbird's fuselage. Other than the missing tail she looks intact. Looks are deceiving. The crash has broken apart all her insides and jet fuel is tricking into the crew cabin. The smell is everywhere.

"Hiro, get in here" Hei Bai says. He looks at the gunner, still strapped into the crash-seat. He checks his eyes for alertness and sees that he's mostly OK. He steps into the cockpit. There's blood and viscera everywhere. Co-pilot's covered in it. Half of it's his. Hei Bai looks at me.

"I need your help. There's no time to worry about spinal or any of that. We're gonna have to stabilize him here, but we need to drag him out of the seat. Can you do that? I need your help."

"I can." I said.

Hei Bai, secures his neck in a sort of head-lock with the co-pilots arms, and I unbuckle him from the seat. He gives me a three two one, and then Hei Bai drags him into the cabin. He leaves a trail of blood on the way out. Or I should say we tried. We've gotten his torso out of the chair and onto the fuselage, but his leg is entrapped in crushed metal of the cockpit somewhere that we can't see. We roll him over and Hei Bai gets to work.

"S-sorry guys. Not a metalbender," Peng apologizes.

"We need to stop the bleeding. Buno's taking control of the fight for now. Oh, Yue, Hiro. There's sparks everywhere. I need you to start squelching them, or we're toast."

"Yes, sir."

It's starting outside. The first staccato of reports.

"What's your name, buddy? Qajak? I'm so sorry, but hey there are worse names right? Do you know your blood type? A positive, got it. That's right, stay positive. Hey! Look at me! I need you to look at me…"

I'm running around the cabin trying to snuff out the sparks. I can feel every single one of them. like little tiny pins and needles. Like every single star at once in the night sky. Putting them out is like to plug hundreds of little tiny leaks in a boat with nothing but your fingers.

A bullet strikes the fuselage and Hei Bai starts to get worried. He unstraps the Native gunner (who only has a broken leg and concussion) and sets him back in his chair behind his quad gun; says he's alert enough to actually aim and pull the trigger in the general direction of bad guys.

"That's it. Nice and easy. All you have to do is sit in the chair and hold the trigger."

And Hei Bai goes back to his healing with the water with what little water he has. After stripping off the man's blood soaked clothes with his knife, he finds a gaping hole in his abdomen. With nothing to stop the bleeding he begins scooping up handful after handful of loam from the ground and stuffing them into the wound. Hei Bai wipes sweat from his brow, covering his forehead in mud and blood. They say the best healers were female, but it's become expected of Hei Bai by now to do the unconventional…

I fire at a couple of insurgents and as soon as I take my time to fire at them I can feel the sparks coming back. Kerosene and blood are mixing on the floor. It smells like a motor pool and slaughterhouse. The machine gun barks to life, hosing down the edge of the farm land.

"I can't hold much longer, Hei Bai!"

"I know I'm working on, Hiro. Keep doing what you're doing. "

Hei Bai looks at Qajak to see how he's doing. For now, he's good enough. Hei Bai runs outside the helicopter and grabs Peng.

They run under fire to the nearest house, with Peng doing his best to shield them. He gets into a good horse stance and… WHAM! He blasts a whole pile of dirt through the side of the house. Peng feels the plumbing beneath his feet and tears it ups, sending a geyser of water into the air.

A bullet catches me across the side of my thigh and cringe in pain, falling over into the cabin. As soon as I do I see a spark go flying right into the edge of the kerosene puddle flowing over the sides of cabin door. I summon every bit of strength I can and hold back a massive wall of flame before it gets to the gas tank.

There's a deafening hissing noise and I'm knocked back down again into the cabin as Hei Bai throws as much water as he can into that fire. He's running back across the street to the helicopter, ignoring all the shots around him. And he's carrying what looks like twelve dozen gallons of water with him. He turns as a an insurgent opens up on him, catching all the bullets inside of a massive water bolus before Peng strikes the troublemaker in the skull with a rock. He washes out all the kerosene jet fuel and puts out every spark. I've never been so glad to see Hei Bai in all my life.

Meanwhile Koko, Buno, and Chang are outside doing their best. Peng has chosen to stay in the building across the street, turning the second floor of the house into his own personal pillbox. Hei Bai, the two flightcrew, and I are inside doing whatever we can. And then the machine gun jams.

"I-I can't get it to clear!"  
"Chang, gunner; fix that thing on the double." Buno orders. "Hiro, Koko; come with me."

"What's the order, sarge?" Asks Koko.

"There's going to be some soldiers sneaking up on us right about about now," Thein Kyu says.

"How do you know?"

"Trust me."

"What make you think they aren't at the end of the street, setting up a shot with their rocket launcher?" I ask.

Koko shakes her head.

"If they wanted to do that," Says Thein Kyu, "They would have done it already. If I were still on the other side, I would want to take your pilots. I would want your bodies as trophies, believe me. I know I'd be able to reach you long before those armored cannon cars show up to rescue you."

Oh, and now Peng is getting over run. Several insurgent's make their way into his house. I hear glass shatter and turn to see Peng jumping out of the second story window. He tucks and rolls and then bellows as he puts all the might he can into bending. He squashes the foundations of the house and it completely collapses. An after-action assessment would confirm the bodies of fifteen insurgents trapped in the house when it collapsed.

Peng now runs to the Helicopter shielding himself with dirt and stone. He reaches up and now he's throwing up walls of dirt left and right as fast as he can to keep the insurgents out. Doesn't help that they've got an earthbender or two with them, and they're tearing the walls down almost as fast as Peng puts them up.

Gripping my rifle tight, and with a little bit of a limp, I lurched my way with my three compatriots to the outside of the hummingbird. Sure enough we see them squatting and crouching their way to our hummingbird from the rear. A few natives, and two other men, foreigners, who look much more composed. I immediately open fire. One of these two men blows the gun right out of Buno's arms. Koko gets a shot square into two of the natives soldiers and then her gun goes empty. Great.

I hit one in an airbender in the the neck, and am then slammed into the back of the helicopter. I try to get back up and am slammed by a gust of wind headfirst over and over again. Thein Kyu is a little occupied, trying to skedaddle sideways as he Boogie Woogies like some Ember Island teenie bopper. He fires wildly from the hip, hoping to get out of the main line of fire. The other Air Bender now aims his rifle to fire straight into my chest.

A blast of wind and sand from Koko hits his mark directly in the airbenders face, or should I say his gun's ejection port. He closes his eyes and grimaces as the first and only shot goes off and impacts beside me, his gun all jammed up. He clears it but Koko is faster. A lot faster. She forgets reloading and draws her pistol. pops of the top of soldiers head before he can kill me, and then she sweeps up a cloud of dust between us and them. Buno throws his Kukri into the other airbender's shoulder and it guides my arc of lightning. The airbender's danse macabre is the Fire Fountain City Jitterbug.

But as the dust clears Thein Kyu has stopped dancing and is just doing the crabwalk as the remaining insurgents stand over him and take aim at all of us.

As I look up I first only see a blurry silhouette that eclipses the midday sun. arms outstretched. he's a whirling dervish. Vaulting over the Hummingbird behind me, the Great Peng takes flight. His left arm comes downward, flattening all the sand below him until I can see the reflection of the insurgents on its surface. Flattening the surface into.. Glass. He lands on his little ice patch and slides across it. Slides past it, conserve his windmilling rotation with a roll till he stops in the soft uncompressed soil. But his right arm continues the forward rotation, pulling the glass with him like it were a ball pulled by centripetal force from the end of the string. I close my eyes knowing what comes next.

Screams

And then silence

There are what used to be five men. Their bodies mangled beyond recognition. Sliced into ribbons.

"Well, come on now!" Peng proclaims. "We're all waiting on ye'!"

All in a day's work.

Hei Bai rounds the corner, "What? What I miss?"

He sees the mince meat, "oh unholy Vaatu," and then a string of profanities.

All in a day's work.

We run back to the front of the Chopper, and then we hear Chang says

"It was a dud round. Hang fire. Case-head separation, I think. Shu opens the pan to check if there was maybe a piece of brass caught behind the bolt, and then, just, explodes."

So here's what we had to work with. Our machine- gunner was now missing a chunk of his hand. Our own machine-gunner, Chang, only brought a rifle. The quad machine gun is absolutely totaled. Koko's out of ammo. Hei Bai's out of ammo. I'm almost out of Ammo. Buno has ammo but would have to spend the next five minutes looking for wherever his gun went without getting shot. Peng has run out of ammo and has resorted to throwing rocks. And to make matters worse, the co-pilot looks like he could go into shock at any moment.

"When's the casevac coming?" Peng asks Hei-Bai.

"That's what we are," He answers. "Armored cars are coming but it's probably gonna be another five minutes for them to screen for all the antitank."

"I have an idea" Koko says and turns to the gunner. "I don't know how to operate this thing. It autogyrates, yes?"

Gunner nods. "It's not - strictly speaking - but it can on descend "

"Then disengage the rotors"

Gunner moves to the cockpit and pulls something that looks like the emergency or parking break lever in the Satomobile that you drive every day. It detaches the rotor-hub of the propellers from the drive shaft so that they spin freely.

"Everybody get on board or get left behind!"

Koko stands in the middle of the cabin. She squats into a horse stance and takes a deep breath. The insurgents tear down the last of Peng's walls and he's too exhausted to put them back up again.

Spitting distance. A young insurgent runs right for us firing his rifle, close enough to see the whites of his eyes. The gunner's one handed belch of burpgun fire cuts him down and he rolls over a few times landing face up just in front of our hummingbird. A little too close.

But Chang stairs straight into his eyes. Fixated. Like he's in a trance.

Koko throws her arms skyward and groans. I put myself between her and the insurgents and begin firing. There's a rush of wind.

"Sniper!"

Once a again, for what feels like the ten dozenth time today, I'm being knocked to the floor. It's the weight of Peng's body crashing into me. He takes the bullet straight to the chest and falls backward into me, knocking us both into the cabin.

There's a final rush of wind and the propellers spin up. We have lift off. Koko screams and summons every last ounce of strength in her body to keep the wind rushing through the propellers, to keep us airborne. We lift up about ten meters off the ground and glide about two hundred more sideways and out of the battlefield and land behind the squad of armored cars - their ninety milimeter guns going to work on an insurgent machine gun nest in the hills.

It's over now. We're safe now. We've lost seven soldiers, and have seventeen more casualties. Not a good day. But we win. And for now, that's all that matters. Jia, Du Lin, and Hei Bai will take any victories they can get.

Chang however has run off to the closest radioman is getting some sort of call patched through while the litter bearers are running over to use to extricate the wounded. I can see Chang snatch the handset from the man and speak into it.

He comes over weak in the knees and says, "My family and children are safe"

"...what are you talking about?" Buno asks of him.

"The boy who we've slain," he says, his knees buckling, "was my son's best friend."


	10. Chapter 10

Eventually we drove them off. The other's did anyway. Jian One licked its wounds while the fighting simmered in the background, a constant staccato and drumroll echoing off of the hills. We solemnly picked ourselves up, and dusted ourselves off, and tried to hold it all together. We had risked it all to save that gunner's life, but all of us felt very low having now learned that the co pilot who Hei Bai had worked so hard to save had died. Gone back into shock before the air ambulance could even reach him. Hei Bai tried to look inscrutable, but in his own way he was weeping. To think, killed by his own fellow soldier.

Chang wasn't taking it as well. To see his own son's best friend, a child, not only cut down but fighting against us as a terrorist. Was he coerced? Did they torture him to do it? Was he brainwashed into fighting in a conflict far beyond his years of understanding? So this was the real tragedy of civil wars. Friends as enemies and brother against brother. This whole country seemed ready to come apart at the seams.

"I am sorry," Buno said to Chang. "We will find the animals who are responsible and we will make them pay."

"You need not look very far." Thein Kyu said. "Their will be a member of the Party somewhere in this village. He will be dressed as a citizen. I am sure of it. He will have been here to inspect the village's loyalty and seeing it lacking will have coordinated the attack from inside."

Hei Bai's ears perk up at this. He picks up his radio and whispers a command into it for the other officers in the area. The whole military is like a grotesque and primitive organism. It has its own organs, and behaviors. It has it's own nervous system. A rustling is seen through select neurons in the beast as its officers all talk into their radio, and the demeanor of the animal as a whole changes as they begin issue orders or silent hand signals down to enlisted men. They begin rounding up families outside their huts and ranches and collecting them together, and begin to question them. Some shrug their shoulders, others point, and a single man that Buno has glued his eyes to begins to to walk rather briskly while avoiding eye contact.

Buno gives a look to Hei Bai and Hei Bai returns it. This man passes not far from a pair of soldiers as he goes right for a nearby satomobile. Hei Bai clicks his radio and whispers into it. The soldiers cock their heads at attention to the order. Hei Bai lets an uncharacteristic cuss word fly over the open radio as the man pulls out a machine pistol and the two soldiers fall wounded to the ground.

Before most of us could process what had happened, the sweaty man had hopped into an open top satomobile and begin racing off down the dirt road. With a toss of his arms, Peng heaved the dirt beneath the satomobiles wheels, but the driver regains control after swerving and careening around the road. Peng shrugs his shoulders

"Well," he says, "it's not like he can outrun a hummingbird gunship."

"No!" Hei Bai responds, "they haven't finished sweeping the road for mines. I want him back here alive and in one piece!"

Hei Bai points to me and Koko and then aggressively stabs his finger at the closest Satomobile.

"On it, sir!" I shout as we both take of running, vaulting over the rear bumper in a single bound and crashing itnto the front seats. Koko flips the engine on, revs it while she pops it into first, then second, then first gear again and we're off like a rocket. It doesn't even take us sixty seconds to catch up to him, not that he was hard to find with all the dust he was kicking up behind him. About a klick and a half from the village by; the idiot doesn't even notice us until we're five meters from the his bumper.

Right as we're coming up next to pulls out that little pistol again. Koko slams on the brakes as he opens fire. I don't even hear the reports, I'm so preoccupied with the windshield next to my face turning opaque from bullet holes. Koko falls back a little, mostly because she's kicking the windscreen out with her foot. She doesn't need it. Airbender, after all.

"You'll have to get us closer!" I shout. "Right behind him."

It may be the stupidest thing I've done yet, but I climb up onto the hood of the vehicle…

She has no problem catching up to him. We're bumper to bumper. Crouching down like an animal I prepare to jump. I swallow. "Hold it steady!"

"I know!" she shouts back.

I jump.

Nope. I'm about to be roadkill.

Koko kicks her foot back over the dash and a blast of wind hits me right in my rear, throwing me up into the Satomobile. I land in the passenger seat with a 'poof!' The Party member looks at me. I lock eyes with him. I smile, "hello." I didn't quite expect the knife.

He whips it out fast, slashing down into my chest and collar bone. I grab his hand wielding the knife. With that touch I electrocute him and then slam his face into the steering wheel. There's a satisfying toot from the horn. As I pull the parking brake and the satomobile crawls to a halt, Koko and I give each other the thumbs up.

By the time the Party member starts to come around, my laceration to the chest has finally stopped bleeding - though to be fair, Hei Bai has done a good job at the bandaging and gluing me back together. Eye's wide, they dart around the scene before he tries to bolt from where he sits only for one of the dozen soldiers smack him back to the ground with a whimper.

"Hello, Mr Party member," says Buno. "Why don't you tell me about what's you're doing here?"

"I am Xemin. I am official member of the Party. I am here on Party business."

"So why do you carry a gun and shoot at my soldiers, Xemin?"

"I.. I am only protecting myself," he stuttered. "You were going to arrest on false pretense!"

"I don't think they're false, Xemin. I think you were helping these terrorists. In fact, I think you were ordering them."

"Lies!"

"In fact, several of the prisoners confessed your name before they knew we suspected you. Do you see that man," Buno pointed at Chang. "His son's - Ping Bei Lu's - best friend died here today, fighting for these terrorists. And I'm sure he participated in mob violence with the other troublemakers, too. Why don't you tell me why he would do such a thing for your Party?"

Something stirred in Xemin, "The Party would make a child fight? There is no such implication whatsoever! Everything I have done was in accordance with the Party, in accordance with your elections, and in accordance with basic law. I have rights, after all! I could have just sat here in silence as is my right but instead I am trying to help you and answer your questions.

I am actually anxious for you all! Really, it's true! You guys are good at one thing. All over this country, where ever you go, you do not run as fast as these terrorists, or they would never get away with this! They have a saying in the mainland Earth Kingdom's People's Democratic Republic, 'say nothing, and you'll make a fortune.' But still I am trying to help you. The questions you ask… so naive! I can tell you - not as the Party, but as an elder - that I have seen too much of this. If I had said nothing perhaps it would have been the best. But I thought I've seen all of you so enthusiastic to win this war, and now I am trying to answer questions and cooperate even against my own interest!"

"Mr. Xeming…"

"But if I said nothing, that wouldn't be good either! You are so desperate to find excuse for failure of both this war and of your politician's service that you would find me and the Party to be a scapegoat should I not answer your absurd questions. And of course those animals would find the village outsider as an easy scapegoat too, instead of turning over their real masters. Naive! You really think I could orchestrate this village attack? You really think I am responsible for trouble makers? You really think I am responsible for beating up Bei Li's son? Ha! Do-

"Mr. Xeming, perhaps you should have said nothing after all? How did you know that Chang Bei Lu's son was beaten by trouble makers."

Then the Party-man went white as a bed sheet. The words he tried to form came bubbling and gurgling out as he searched for excuses. But ignoring this all Hei Bai picked up his FN FAL, loaded it, charged the handle, and handed it to a distant and weak-kneed Chang.

"No please! You cannot do this! I am a member of the Party! I…"

The first shot tore a hole through the man's stomach. The screams were almost as loud as the report. But then then next shot to the gut came a few seconds later. And the next one after that. And then again. And until the entire magazine was slowly emptied. But Chang never looked to see the bloody gore he created, though his hands were shaking. He kept looking off to the mountains.

When we returned to the fob we were given liberty for the next thirty six hours as rehab for the events of this morning. No one really wanted to talk about it; the fight, the casualties, what Chang did, what Chang _had_ to do, the Party...

The Party…

The Party was inescapable. The Party was everywhere. The Party was more than just the Earth Kingdom and it only just dawned on me how insurmountable their struggle would be going forward. There is no winning against the Party. But I didn't have to win. I only had to survive long enough to walk away from the table. Time to go all in - I went straight back to Hei Bai's tent once we were dismissed.

"I'm leaving." I said.

"Why?" Hei Bai didn't look up from his paperwork.

"There's no way I'm sticking around for this. Not after seeing the party"

He shrugged, "I convinced Koko to stay, and maybe I can convince you."

"I don't think you can. Money's not good enough. Simply doubling my pay isn't going to get me to stay on this rock." That was a bit excessive, but now I could begin haggling.

"I didn't just double Koko's pay if that's what you think. But, OK, name your price."

Time to really go in, and really hope he doesn't call my bluff, "Triple it."

"OK. Done."

What? "Maybe my price doubled again."

"OK. Then I'll double it. Triple it. Quadruple it. Tell you what, Hou Yi. I think your offer is weak so here's mine. I'm going to offer a lifetime supply of free money. Free housing. Free food. Anything you want is yours, no questions asked. You can live the rest of your entire life here, all on the work of my fat-ass dirty yuan."

"…I"

"what? You're in it for the money right? Got more money than you could ever spend. Budget is meaningless to me, I have a blank check from Du Lin herself. Take all you can, give nothing back. That's all you care about right?"

"I don't understand… are you that desperate, or are you trying to mock me."

"What I'm trying to do is offer you a _home_. And I'll tell you the truth. I am very desperate. I am desperate because of what I am fighting for. What we're all fighting for. It matters, Hiro, even if you don't care."

He produced a blue slip of paper, scratched a line thru the numbers, wrote a new one, and then signed and initialed.

"Speaking of which. Take this. It's your check for the week. Quadruple is OK for now, yes? Good. Can you do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Take my jeep. Give Chang a ride to Capital City so he can cash his check, and then take him home so he can see his family."

I took Hei Bai's key's and found both his Satomobile and Chang shortly after. I tried to make small talk on the way to Capital City but Chang didn't say much. He doesn't say much of anything. Just as well. When he does you can smell the chewing tobacco on his breath. We pulled up to the Capital City bank.

The two of us wait in line for half an hour, only for the teller to say "I can't cash these government issue checks here. You'll have to go to a government treasury office."

"No we don't," I said. "This is a government bank. Our checks here are as good as anywhere else.'

"Well OK then, sir. We're going to need to see some IDs."

Chang and I fish into our pockets and present them.

"Oh I'm sorry. These IDs are not good."

"Why?"

"because there's no voter ID card. Without it there's no way for me to verify that you really are a citizen of Jia."

"Well neither of us can get voter registration. We're not water tribe."

"Then how do we really know that you two are Hiro Yusha and Chang Bei Lu?"

I open up my uniform, showing my Jian issued dog tags and the new patch stitched onto my uniform.

"I serve in the military. These are military issue dog tags and patches."

"No. you could have stolen it. It could be more forgery. Please come back later when you have proper documentation."

"Ok… OK…" I said. I ripped open my shirt, revealing the bandages and stitches underneath.

"I got shot and stabbed today. Wanna take a closer looksee?"

I ripped the bandage from my chest, and gritted my teeth and winched as the stitches came out with it. Blood starts dripping over the teller's desk.

"As you can see, this one's not actually too bad. Just a grazing slash from a knife wound. But I'm luck… if he had thrusted I probably wouldn't be alive.

"Hiro!" Chang shouts, "What are you doing? Stop this."

"Security! Security!"

Blood's still dripping all over the desk.

A dozen soldiers rush in from somewhere and come to us. Chang stands off to the side and sighs. He puts his hands up and doesn't say a word. Just keeps looking out into space.

"ma'am? What's the problem"

"Remove these two right now!"

Half of these soldiers are non-Water tribe. They look at the military patches on our shoulders and they hesitate

"Oh," I continue. "Are these forgeries too? Do you think I did this to myself?"

Splat, splat, splat. The blood drips to the floor, it runs down my shirt.

"Hiro…" Chang says, "Everyone's staring."

"Let them. Let them ask why this teller won't cash our check's we've earned by bleeding for their country."

The dozen soldiers sent to arrest us move to stand beside us, shoulder to shoulder. They don't say a word. Maybe they know the experience all too well. They stare down the teller with burning eyes. Trembling, she takes the checks, wiping the blood off one of them, and opens his register. He takes out the money and hands it to us.

"Get out, dirt bender."

Moron doesn't even know neither of us are Earth Benders. But I guess all yellow-skins look the same to him.

As I walk out of the bank I'm not quite sure I even did what I just did. The dozen soldiers walk out with me and salute me. A tribal cop on the street sees us and salutes us. I tell the Chang to get in the car and drive. He drives away as fast as he can.

"Don't worry. I won't waste any more of your time by stopping at a hospital or something. Just don't go off-roading or anything while I do this."

He nods. I reach into the back seat of the car and grab one of Hei Bai's trauma kits. I pull out a thread and needle and being stitching back up the gash on my breast. I sanitize it and put a bandage on top. I cover up my wound and ripped shirt with my jacket.

We drive for another hour. After forty minutes of silence, Chang says to me, "I know you're mad. Please let it go, Hiro. It's not worth it."

We're driving straight into the sun but it doesn't blind us. It's warm and setting and red like the blood stained to my shirt and it looks like the whole sky is on fire. Don't ask me if there's any meaning in that, I don't know.

Another half hour goes by and we roll up to one of the farmstead villages. Indistinguishable from the one we fought at earlier. A mix of mud and thatch huts and new modern homes. As Peng got out of the care he motioned for me to come out, too. The cicadas are busy singing in their trees, screaming _Kree! Kree!_

In the dirt three boys were playing. A beautiful native woman stood by one of the houses, watching them. One of them was water tribe, by the darkness of his skin. All three of them ran around together with pots and colanders on their heads, holding sticks in their hands.

They stopped and looked at us as we approached. They took off their pretend helmets and started running toward us.

"Daddy! Daddy!"

"My boys!" Chang breaks into a smile and runs toward them. He scoops them both up, one in each arm and starts spinning around and around. They're giggling.

"whoo hoo," he sets them down and gives both of them big sloppy kisses on their heads. "daddy's a little dizzy now. You wanna see the airplane?"

"yeah! Yeah!"

Chang holds his arms out to his sides like wings and begins running around. His sons follow him running, making their impression of an airplane.

"Wanna see what a jet plane looks like?"

"what's a jet, daddy?"

"Come-on, I'll show ya!"

He holds his arms swept backwards now, and begins making sharp twists as he runs and makes a zooming whooshing noise.

As I'm standing there the water tribe boy runs up to me. He's wearing a pot on his head like a helmet, carrying a stick for a rifle, and he's got some rope wrapped around himself like a bandoleer

"Are you a soldier too?"

"well… yeah!"

"Private Tam reporting for duty sir!"

I awkwardly returned the salute.

"Thank you soldier! Are you a hero like Ping and Pong's dad?"

Before I could think of anything to say, one of the boy's locks eyes with me. He tries to smile, But behind it i can see into his eyes as they pierce through me. They're eyes I've seen before. Burning eyes. Soldier's eyes. Same as the soldiers in the Capital City bank. The eye's of someone who's lost their innocence.

"Come along, Ping," Says Chang, the boy turning away from me. "Supper is ready."

I don't try to stick around much after that. The whole experience leaves me feeling… uncomfortable, for some reason. But as I was walking to my car, I saw another Satomobile drive up to edge of property. Out hops… Buno and Thein Kyu?

"Just in time!" Buno says. "Hiro, I will need you to come to the Capital with me. But first, I will need to speak with Chang."

Chang waves his children off to his wife and goes to speak with Thein Kyu and Buno. Sitting in Hei Bai's stamobile parked nearby, I can fragments of their conversation as they stand near Buno's jeep. It's not much, but it's enough to know what's going on…

"No," says Chang, "He doesn't know yet."

"Do you plan to tell him?"

"Eventually. But how could I ever tell him that it was at my hands? I think he's beginning to suspect that his friend is already dead. After all, they haven't seen him in months now, not since the mob."

"And that's the other thing we need to discuss. This situation is putting me in a difficult situation…"

"Buno, please." Says Thein Kyu, "He's been through enough today already."

"I understand," says Buno, "but it's put me in a difficult position. I don't want this either. But at the end of day, your son participated in that mob. He beat people, too. Du Lin's stance is very clear, we punish criminals no matter what, to send a message to would be troublemakers. I'm not sure how much longer I can protect him from the police."

Chang looks at the ground, and tears begin to flow down his cheeks. "The harvest has been bad this season. Not enough rain. They say it is because the spirits are upset, that the bloodshed has angered them and that they will be unhappy until wrongs have been righted. I cannot stop justice. But my greatest regret is that now Ping never be a doctor, or anything more than a farmer. They will never let a criminal work outside tribal lands"

"Have them drop the charges, Buno." Thein Kyu responds. "The evidence is circumstantial, even if it is true. We'll get Du Lin to drop the charges."

Chang interjects, "Du Lin is hard to convince. She would never put herself in such a position to be seen as playing favorites or abusing her power."

"Then an exchange. Leniency for the boy, but I will stand trial."

"Thein Kyu…"

"No, Buno. I have done what I have done. But the boy risked everything to do the right thing, without lying or deceit. Hei Bai has already agreed to help me. Du Lin may want to send a message of justice to would be troublemakers. But if we do not show leniency here then we will lose their hearts and minds because we will deny them hope."

They talked at little more, until Thein Kyu and Chang embraced each other and Buno approached me saying, "Follow me and Thein Kyu to the Capital. Du Lin wants you present for an emergency meeting. Then we'll reset the clock on your liberty."

The sun had set by now and the twilight turned to darkness. The drive back by myself was long and arduous and I would have been lost had Buno not been leading the way. Only the internation radio kept me company, the latest teenbopper music being looped over the airways.

 _On a winter's day/_

 _I'd be safe and warm/_

 _In Ba Sing Sae/_

 _Fire Nation dreamin'..._


	11. Chapter 11

Through the velde, through the Kopjes and brush, the sun punished all, native and Water Tribe alike. Thein Kyu and I sat beside one another on a rock in the one little crater deep enough to lay down in. Sort of back to back, sort of side to side, passing a canteen of water back and forth. The mountains to the east were behind us and if you squinted you could just make out the beginning of the Si Wong desert. No camo or netting to shade us as we were far from the Jian border now and would not leave a trace of our presence.

Sitting across from each other on a pair of stumps sat Koko and Peng. The two of them took turns throwing a knife as close as they could to other's feet in a game called mumbly-peg. This was important, you see - money was on the line.

"You guys really shouldn't do that," Said Chang, "It's dangerous."

"Shut up, dad!" They retorted in unison. Peng pulled the knife from the dirt and threw it with a cock of his wrist and elbow, embedding itself in the loam less than a centimeter from Koko's toe. She didn't bat an eye.

"It's sort of comforting to think that even on the other side of the mountains there's still just as much drought as back on the homesteads," Thein Kyu says.

Chang said, "My people pray to a spirit of the rain, Shangyang. A great bird, whose wings beat so strongly that they churn the skies and collect rainstorms. Alas, the rain goddess has not answered our prayers."

"I know of Shangyang," said Thein Kyu, "she is a servant of Yu Shi, but he has not answered the prayers for rain either. There are other great birds revered in my village, the Jian. They say it is a pair of birds, - mirroring each other but not opposites - each with one leg, one wing, and one eye. They are black and white, Yin and Yan, Hei and Bai, husband and wife. They fly together as one, or they will both falter and die."

Just then I heard a noise in the brush and tapped Thein Kyu on the shoulder. We both grabbed our guns and stood up, looking over the crater. Thein Kyu sees them first and says, "stand down, it's Buno and Hei Bai"

Coming in at a full gallop, Hei Bai rides his dragon-horse right to the edge of the crater. The creature rears up as Hei Bai pulls the reins, and the distraction slips the knife from Koko's finger's a moment too early. The blade embeds itself in the wooden stump, between Peng's legs and mere millimeters from his groin. Startled, he falls backward from the stump

"Hey! you flinched," Koko exclaims, "Pay up, mother f-"

"Enough!" shouted Buno. "I'll have none of this criminal degeneracy in my squad."

"I'll put another ten Yuan on Koko," Hei Bai says as he pulled at the reins of dragon-horse's snapping head. "Buttercup is a really good boy unless he catches scent of a jackalope within twenty klicks. Anyway, The car's in the village. Like the spooks said it'd be." 

Buno said, "We'll leave the dragon-horses here. Take everything else. This operation is all riding on you, Peng. No matter what happens - no matter _what happens -_ don't blow your cover.

The satomobile bombs that had been wreaking havoc through the cities were being built assembled outside the border and driven in. We had thought earlier that they were being armed in the cities. The town we were outside of was one of them. Huts, a generator or two, and only a thousand souls lived here. But there was a lance like ours sitting on the outskirts of every one of these towns for the last month, all with the same plan in place.

Peng drew the short straw. He wasn't water tribe, and as a former combat engineer he was the only one of us qualified in explosives. We couldn't stop all the car bombs, but we wouldn't have to. We were going to catch some that we could. Some were tampered with to be duds. Others would detonate at random. Peng was going to slip into the garage and put a timed fuse into the bomb. In ideal circumstances we'd wait for the cover of night. But if we missed our shot there'd be another dozen dead women and children in the Capital the next day.

So now we waited on the periphery, all in silence, and Peng journeys alone into the forest of stucco. For thirty agonizing minutes, I bite my lower lower lip till it bleeds. Thirty minutes later I breathe a sigh of relief. Then a gasp of terror. As we see him make it to the edge of the village and hop the split rail fence of an animal pen, troublemakers brandishing QBZ rifles appear behind him.

"Don't. Move." Hei Bai says.

"They'll kill him," says Chang.

"I said, don't move. Peng has faith, he hasn't broken his cover yet, neither will we."

The troublemakers shove Peng to his knees, and strike him with the but of their rifles. Still, he only puts up the meekest of protests.

"We'll save him," says Hei Bai, "but we'll need all the help from Thein Kyu I can get."

Thein Kyu smiles and nods, already guessing the con that I do not…

After a couple minutes of Thein Kyu explaining our roles to us, Buno and Hei Bai slink off to their dragon-horses. The rest of us stroll across the brush to Peng. Koko leads the way and I follow, the two of us having laid down our weapons and given them to Buno. Chang and Thein Kyu trail to either side.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! What is going on here?" Koko bellows.

"Who goes there?" the two insurgents shout, pointing there rifles at us.

"Fools!" shouts Thein Kyu. "Is that how you dare address a superior officer or a commissar of the Party?"

Koko airbends a gust of dust into one of the two insurgents faces. They both lie prostrate and kowtow to us. "We are so sorry, ma'am. Please, forgive us."

"This man before you is a spy." says Koko. "But he is not here to observe us. He came here to attempt to leave with a message, because someone in this village is not loyal to the cause and is telling secrets to this man. Bring out every one of your comrades in the village, including your Party member."

"Now," I said, "I will show you what we do to spies."

I approached Peng and smiled. I mouthed 'sorry,' but part of me wasn't. I made sure to pull my punches and kicks. Well, most of them. Had to sell it, after all. A few minutes later, after I had broken a sweat and had gotten tired of beating Peng, there was a crowd of fifteen or so of the troublemakers lined up outside.

"The Party member looked at Koko and asked, "what is an officer doing here? We weren't expecting any support from the Sovereignty?"

I point to Chang, and he kills the man where he stands.

"I am a commissar of the Party, and I will punish all who betray it or fail it," I said. "Some people have been disloyal, and clearly he has failed the Party in inspiring obedience. Whoever is disloyal to the party, and was giving secrets to this spy, I will find them."

"Everyone, pushups, now!" shouts Thein Kyu, "The first to collapse does not really want to give his all to the cause."

I have never before seen such terror in the faces of men. There arms were shaking before even the first exercise but none of them could stop. While Koko, Thein Kyu, and I inspected the men in front of us, Chang pulled Peng up from the ground and walked him at gunpoint around to the back of a building. There is a single crack of a gunshot.

"I didn't say stop doing push-ups!" shouts Thein Kyu.

As we inspect the men, he gives me gestures to specific individuals. I point for them to get up and Thein Kyu escorts them to the back of the building. More gunshots.

A minute or two later Thein Kyu and Chang pull up in large covered supply truck.

"We'll be taking this from you," said Koko. "you had better continue the mission as planned, or else there will be further consequences."

Koko and I opened up the flaps and hopped inside the rear of flat as Chang began to drive off. Tied and gagged were a half dozen troublemakers, with Peng holding them at gunpoint.

All in another days work. Hei Bai and Buno or whoever else would have to go through them one at a time. Thein Kyu had picked some that he knew were the bad eggs, but the most were ones he knew had wavering loyalties (if they ever really had any loyalty to the Party to begin with) and would give information freely, if not also turn coat like Thein Kyu and so many others had already. This was how we might just win this war. I peaked my head out the flaps and saw Buno and Hei Bai galloping behind our truck. Hei Bai shrugged his shoulders at me while he rode side saddle on his dragon-horse. I nodded and gave him both thumbs up.

"You can almost see it from here," said chang, pulling his scarf tighter around his face, "Si Wong rock."

Thinking about it made me shudder as well.

Two weeks drifted by since that operation. The fuse Peng planted set the car bomb off later that day, killing three of the troublemakers. It was only one of two dozen bombs in the last month that had been either blown up prematurely or failed to detonate at all. And very shortly after the start of this operation something amazing happened. The number of car bombings began to slow down. And now, for the last week, they had stopped in entirety. Peace had finally returned to the capital, as it was starting to return in the homesteads as well.

Maybe, just maybe, this is what winning looks like.

A colonel and his orderly ran around the camp handing out some sort of pieces of paper to all the soldiers on the base. I thought back to the start of the operation. To my conversation with Du Lin. The same night I had returned with Thein Kyu and Buno from Chang's farm.

I had thought it odd that I of all people was summoned to be present at these deliberation. Regardless of my past accomplishments, I was at the end of the day still a trigger puller. In so many words I had asked about this in the middle of a conversation we were having. Du Lin said, "I need an outside observer. I need point of contradiction and dissent."

Buno snickered trying to hold back is laughter. "As if you don't already have that."

"What do you mean? Aren't you and Hei Bai both Jian Water Tribe?"

"You see," Said Hei Bai, "Du-Lin believes in that legalistic society and harmony nonsense"

"And Hei Bai is a dirty hippy!" Du Lin blurted out. She cleared her throat and recomposed herself. "While Hei Bai and I may have our… differences, we are in agreement on most of the issues facing this nation. We cannot afford an echo chamber"

In the end, it didn't matter how much they believed the same, or differed in beliefs. There was Buno's tribal mysticism. That was unique among the 'old breed' of the Water Tribe; it cared only for itself. Then there was Hei Bai's Tao and Du Lin's legalism. These two beliefs had a feud with each other since the day of their inception. But none of that mattered because as far as the civilized world was concerned, they were all dead relics of the past. All were banned from existence within the Earth Kingdom under the label of the Four Olds

With the advance of modern technology, the world needed New Customs, New Culture, New Habits, and New Ideas. To make room for a new age of Progress, these old things just had to go. Among them were the spirits that inhabited this world. There has been more change in seventy years before and after the last harmonic convergence than in the whole ten thousand years before. And with the change brought by the invention of guns, humans were now stronger than the Spirits. In the past they flooded from the spirit world into ours, but now we drove them back. Where we once survived by the mercy of the lion turtles, they survived by our mercy. The portals could never be completely closed, but were sealed and guarded.

I mention this because only a few generations ago Korra opened the portals to unite the spirits and the humans. Korra's message to both worlds was simple:

Respect each other

Work together

Live in peace

Treat each other with fairness and equality.

I guess the world wasn't ready for that, even after ten thousand years. And one hundred and nineteen years later, it seems we're still not ready.

"What if they're right about the vote?" I said.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "How could they be?"

"Think about how they feel. Think about how _I_ feel. They're contributing just as much and they love this country just as much but they're still treated as second class citizens. They serve this country in greater numbers than the Water Tribe, and die to defend it. It's no wonder the opposition so easily exploits them"

"What is so hard about this for you people to understand? Before the water tribe showed up this place was a dessert with a few scattered tribesmen. I remember when we were under Fire Nation rule and the biofilms and corrosion choked out the desalination plants. I remember when water benders would line up sometimes in the thousands and pump that fresh water from the bay to the farmsteads by _hand, Hiro_ _. We_ tilled the soil. _We_ started the country. They _came_ here. That was _their_ choice to make, Hiro."

"Just like you chose to come here? They flocked here for the exact same reasons that you did, to get away from the Earth Kingdom and the Party. And I might remind you that this land isn't even yours, either. Otherwise, you wouldn't even be fighting this war right now. Don't forget that you built this country by standing on the backs of your natives laborers. and Fire Nation taxpayers. You're acting no better than your oppressors."

"So what if we do? That's survival. That's good statecraft. The human race is all about relationships, Hiro. And part of that system means that there are those who govern, and those who are governed. You speak like a naïve idealist."

"And you speak exactly like a politician." She bit her lower lip.

And then Thein Kyu interrupted, "Hiro you must understand that things here are not so simple. There was a time not to long ago when a different people than my own had lived here, and we, too, stole this land from them. This clay has passed through many people's hands many time. Now, I am sorry but there is something that Buno and I would like to discuss with Du Lin alone."

It had been one month since that fateful meeting. Du Lin started our operation to sabotage the and stop the bombers the next day. Now I was staring at a piece of paper in my hand. A ballot.

"Colonel, sir, what is the meaning of this?"

"Du Lin has called an early presidential election. By authority of her decree, she has mandated an end to educational requirements. All Jian citizens by birth, and all serving in the military, have been enfranchised. We vote tonight, because the whole military is being mobilised tomorrow for the protection of the population. Voting stations in the cities and buses to collect votes for the natives. Consider this your heads up."

So this was finally it.

The vote.

I waited till he walked away and incinerated the piece of paper in the palm of my hand. What should I care, this wasn't my country. If felt a chill of cold run down the back of my neck. I stared up to the sky, and came another on my cheek.

Rain.

First real rain since the start of this conflict, since the start of the drought. That night I fell into a heavy sleep.

The next morning - the most momentous days in Jian history since unilateral declaration of independence - looked like any other. I'm sorry to you, my reader. I really am. I wish I could speak of the turmoil in the cities and the jubilation and parties and celebrations. But for most of us soldiers, it was another day on patrol outside a village.

It had to be this way. Not a single terrorist had dared to attack the farms or villages. There was no car bomb that could be prepared fast enough given this out of the blue call to election. Every private company was shut down for the day with their losses subsidized. And every single reservist was mobilized to patrol and form perimeters.

As we watched the procession come from the capital to hand out ballots under the inspection of both Du Lin's government and the Party's representatives, I saw Chang begin to cry.

"I thought this day would never come" He said as both tears and raindrops ran down his cheeks. "That our voices would finally be recognized."

I think that to Thein Kyu this day was a lot more hollow. Like myself he had also destroyed his ballot. As for the others, I did not ask what they voted for, or if they voted at all. Again, as significant as this day was, it might have been any other if it weren't for the rain.

We watched over our post. And then we went home. And then the next day came the news. Du Lin had won in a landslide.

When we returned home to the FOB there was a celebration throughout the camp, not seen since the unilateral declaration of independence. Baijiu and traditional beer had been pulled out of hiding by the natives and the officers did not even pretend to look the other way.

Party lights and floating paper lanterns had all made a return, even if they were against usual operational security. "Hip Hip Hoorah! Forward together!" continued to be chanted through the camp. Not even the rain could put a damper on our jubilee

We shuffled wearily to congregation in the middle of the encampment and sat down at a table where we greeted with celebratory dishes. Chicken-possums feet. Gao Choi, BBQ. Boiled sea prunes (disgusting waterbender tripe). Fresh Kimchi courtesy of the local farmsteads. And of course noodles. I didn't even mind the rain, it felt cool on my skin, in fact.

"This is so good I could cry!" Hei Bai exclaimed between spitting out the bones of the chicken foot in his mouth.

"Ifthindskfsotooitisssrwaawywargharble," Koko said, stuffing an endless torrent of noodles down her gullet. Her stomach was a bottomless pit, surpassing even Buno.

Right on cue, Chang pulled the flask from inside his flak vest resulting in a scowl from Buno.

"Go easy on the hooch," said Hei Bai. "We still gotta patrol just as hard for the next few weeks in case of retaliatory attacks." His breath reeked of the sea prunes.

"Hey relax," said Koko after belching. "We've earned this."

And then there was a wave of gasps and comotion that spread from some point within the camp. Some officers were throwing hand signals across the camp to each other. Other's could be seen leaning over to whisper into one another's ears. Hei Bai stood up to survey what was happening. And then syllable by syllable we all started to har in bits and pieces what had just happened.

A chill of fear I first mistook for a raindrop ran down my spine. Today was supposed to be a day of victory. But everything changed when the Air Sovereignty attacked.

Without warning, their Airforce advanced group had begun bombing the east of the peninsula. Tian Five airdock was destroyed. The rest of their air force was mobilizing for complete air superiority within the next twenty four hours.

"Grab everything you have," said Hei Bai, "Pack your bags. And get set for your next mission. You all have fifteen minutes to meet me at the motor pool. We're driving the the east of the Capital. We're going to war."


	12. Chapter 12

Tensions ran high the next day. Naturally all of us were scared. But no one hiding like rats with me in this ditch could take all of the enormity at once. War. Real War. Not with trouble makers but with a super power. Was this really happening? Weren't we already at war? The officers were nervous. Koko, Peng, and I started to feel relaxed. We'd trained to fight a real war for our whole adult lives but had the indignity of shooting at children at peasants.

But our enemy was more faceless than we had hoped. They would be content to bombard us with near impunity from the air. Once their attack aircraft finished bombing tactical targets, the gunships would sweep across the land, like stepping on an anthill - unless we could put a stop to it.

"The mission will begin at zero hours tonight. Squads two and three will be laying low and hitting the enemy from the rear after they deploy troops. You'll keep your ears open for orders, and be ready to move from your fighting holes at a moment's notice. My squad is the sexy mission squad. We're gonna be taking this fight to the enemy."

Hei Bai stopped to squirt a glob of sunscreen onto his fingers and rub it into his nose. He then drew his knife and began to scratch his plans in the soil.

"Other than the bombings and the probing infantry attacks, the real air bender offense comes from the airships; the Sovereignty refers to all of their own airships as Appas, and all of their friendly fighters as Momos. They have four types of these air ships: Sanzuwu class bombers, Yanwu class gunships, Jinwu class flying aircraft carriers, and transports. The biggest threat is the bombers and the aircraft carrier escorts. The infantry scout a region. They pick soft targets, and the transports drop hundreds of paratroopers. Once the troops have encircled and defended an area, the gunships sweep across that area like scythes. I plan to board that sky-bison, and turn their own guns against them."

The silence was deafening. Everyone who wasn't one of Hei Bai's heroes was holding their breath. Chang, Koko, and Buno didn't look phased in the slightest.

Someone broke the silence, "how are you gonna do that? Who is going to do that? That's a suicide mission. To pull something like that off, you'd have to be…"

Right on que, Peng strolled into the circle, bent a rock out of the earth, and sat on it.

"…the Oni of Si Wong," some else finished.

Peng licked his lips.

Hei Bai unwrapped a candy bar and began to take bites of it. He continued, "Koko and Peng will be the ones assaulting the gunship, the rest of you are just support. You can call this mission whatever you want. But this mission is happening and you will follow my orders no matter how suicidal you think they are. I don't care what you think of them. It's about time that the Air Nation takes us seriously. Furthermore, PFFFFFFFTT! Pft! Pft! P'!"

"you OK, sir?"

"ah, gross, I got sunscreen in my mouth."

One of the younger soldiers asked. "What is the Oni of Si Wong?"

Everyone turned to stare at him. after an awkward pause, Koko finally answered, "he's a ghost story. A fairy tale. An invisible, unstoppable spec-ops agent of death? It's a story for scaring over-privileged children."

"But why does everyone talk about him? Where did it come from?"

"Here's the story I heard a few years ago," another said. "It was during the sand-bender insurrection. There was a special forces group. Something you wouldn't want to dance with, demon or not, you know what I mean? But on their way out on a mission, things don't go so well. The story always changes but the end is that they all get killed. All of 'em but one. And this guy just goes… nuts! Like just sick with rage. But I think he was just scared, you know. Afraid. But what he does next is the really scary part. He just up and kills all of 'em. The story always gets taller and taller, but at its lowest count that I remember, he goes and kills over a hundred of these insurgents, a good order of them with his bare hands, even.''

"or she," Koko chimed.

"Yeah, or she."

"Sounds like a load of crap to me," says Peng.

"I thought you were gloating about it; not actually a bad reputation to have in the scheme of things, I guess,'' I said to Peng.

"Guess he hasn't told ya. You're the Oni tonight, Hiro."

"What do you mean?"

"You and Koko are taking the airship. They just think that I'm the one going up there. After all, it is a legend right? Doesn't really matter who the Oni is or not. But let's keep this a little spec-ops secret, OK, private?"

"Y-Yes, sir."

We sat in that hole for hours, trying to ignore the heat and the distant sounds of gunfire. Dusk came. Then night. Koko and I got up from the dirt, leaving a puddle of sweat behind us. Stepping out from the camouflage netting, Hei Bai was waiting for us with our equipment. Chiefly, a tandem parachute.

"Can you see that, right above us?" asked Hei Bai. I could not. "It's almost right above us now. But they can't see us either. This will be one for the history books. Good luck."

Hei Bai handed the tandem parachute to Koko and we began to strap ourselves together.

"You know," Koko said as she tightened the parachute harness around her shoulders, "this whole thing could be a suicide mission. I don't trust that Hei Bai isn't just sending us up there to die."

"Because you're an air bender?"

"Yeah."

"maybe Hei Bai doesn't trust you. Why did you decide to stay and fight against the airbenders?"

She paused long enough for me to take in the sounds of the warm summer night. The chirping of the cicadas. The distant rumble and of engines and cannon fire and the thunder. The twinkle of heat lightning and muzzle flash. A very pleasant night for the amount of dying that was about to unfold.

"Because I love my people, but I don't love what my country has done to them. Did you know Tenzin wanted to dissolve the Air nation? He wanted us to be free, even from ourselves. Have you ever seen what life in the Air Nation is like? We're in shambles but our politicians like to distract everyone by roaming around and shooting at every outside problem we see. I want this madness to stop. And I hope that if I stop it here then maybe we can finally fix ourselves. At least that's the spiel of what Hei Bai told me to believe."

"do you believe him."

"I do," she said. "or at least I'm trying, really hard."

I remember once, on a night in a dessert foxhole like this, asking comrade and friend Korah about the Air Sovereignty. "hey Korah! Don't you Air Nomads have any normal folks like me? It's always air benders, air benders, air benders!" Korah laughed.

"You know," Korah said to me, "Back in the day, we all used to be pretty savage. A newborn child was inspected. And if he was discovered not to be a bender, he was cast aside and left to fate. It was cruel, but hey, we didn't have a homeland… we had to stay strong and mobile. We're nomads after all. What're ya gonna do?"

"And what about now?"

"Well of course we don't do that anymore, we're not savages. The gene tests the eggheads have these days, they can tell if a fetus is a going to be a bender or not, and take care of it right there. Painless. Hell, it took my parents two tries before they got it right with me."

I miss him. I miss all of them.

Koko stood up as I approached her. I pressed my back to her as she strapped me into the parachute.

"Now don't get any funny ideas, ya hear?"

"I'll try not to."

Koko took a long, deep breath as she prepared to airbend. She pulled the cord on the chute and whisked us up into the starry moonless sky. A pair of Jians take flight.

We spiraled around on the warm summer air, riding the thermals up and down and up again, waiting for our target. We knew it was out there, somewhere. It was massive but nearly invisible, like a leviathan of the deep. I looked over the horizon to the north and I didn't see it. I didn't see anything; but most of all I didn't see the stars that were there a few seconds ago. That had to be our mark. I turned on my night vision.

There it was! Only three hundred meters away and moving at us fast and oblivious, it had no idea we were here. I signaled to Koko and turned my night vision back off – blasted things give you motion sickness, the field of view is so narrow.

Koko sent us skyward with a blast of wind we swooped up toward the sides of the monster. We had to get close, but had to be even more careful of the propellers that lined the said of the craft. I readied my shotgun as we swept in toward the zeppelin and fired. the grappling hook snaked a coil of rope behind it, arcing through the sky. That half second felt like an eternity. Bull's-eye! Perfect clip right onto the starboard nacelle. I began spooling out the cable so that it would snap taught.

"Hold on!" Koko shouted to me.

The gust of wind caught me off guard as we were slammed into the side of the zeppelin. We rolled over top each other down the side of Kevlar canvas, our eight limbs flailing uselessly and wildy.

"Grab something! Grab something!" one of us shouted. Our parachute had deflated and twisted and dangled as dead weight beneath us. I did everything I could to cling to the side of the zeppelin, but it just wasn't working. And that's just when our parachute decided to untangle itself. We were both violently ripped from the side of the airship, and stopped just as violently. I could barely hear Koko screaming over the sound of the wind rushing over us. I looked behind me at Koko and saw that our chute wasn't even three meters from being sucked into the starboard propeller. I look forward and I could see that the rope was caught and coiled around Koko's legs, nearly twenty meters of loose rope dangling between it and our harness. We had to get Koko's foot free but if that rope slipped off now…

That's it. Time to do something desperate. With a swish of my hand and a jet of flame I severed the parachute from our harness. We swung, upside down, like a pendulum on nearly thirty yards of cable.

"Koko! Are you OK?" my head was starting to go fuzzy from all the blood rushing to it.

"Does it look like I'm OK?"

I tried to reach for the rope, but there was no way I'd ever be able to sit up and reach high enough above Koko's ankle to undo the coil with her weight on our back. Koko wasn't going to like what comes next but it couldn't be help. I reeled in all the cable I could with the electric winch on our harness. I pulled it taught, and then Koko groaned as it pulled our waists up to her heel, tightening the rope around her ankle from both ends. The pain must have been unbearable, but now I finally had enough purchase to reach above her ankle. I could grab the rope, but there still wasn't enough slack for me to undo the coil. I was out of options. Above me I could hear the guns of the air ship had just started firing on Jian soldiers and villages. So I did the only thing I could. I clutched the rope as tightly as I could with my right and with my left, I severed it beneath her ankle.

The two of us whipped violently back and forth as our bodies righted themselves. My arm felt like it was going to explode. I was grateful for having a ninety pound girl on my back instead of, Rhava forbid, Buno.

"Koko! Clip the end of the cable into the winch right now or we're toast!"

"I can't!" she said. "There's not enough slack!"

Hand over hand, I pulled the two of us higher and higher up the rope. I stopped us when Koko had about half a meter to work with. She fumbled for a few seconds as she tried to feed the rope through the auto-gri-gri that should couldn't see. It probably didn't help that we were vibrating thanks to violent shaking in my arms. They felt like they were going to explode.

koko gasps, "I did it!"

I let go of the rope and my heart skipped a beat as the harness caught us. For the next five minutes, the two of us simply hung from the cable, saying nothing.

After collecting myself, I flicked the switch on the winch and we whorled our way up to the cable to the Airship's nacelle. As we reached the top I noticed my grappling hook was only a centimeter or so from coming undone. It took me a minute, but I managed to slice through the exterior with a jet of flame. Mustering all the strength we had, Koko and I pulled ourselves inside, tumbling into the empty maintenance corridor. We rolled over, unclipped ourselves from each other, and slumped up against the aluminum pipes.

"Are you OK, Koko?"

"Check my leg"

I rolled up her pant-leg and applied pressure. She winced in pain. Lots of swelling.

"strained ankle, broken fibula. Can you complete the mission?"

"yeah, I'll be fine. Thanks for asking, jerk."

"We got a long night ahead of us yet."

The two of us popped open the maintenance hatch that connected this corridor to the rest of the airship. Taking point, I rounded the corner into the fire control center; three air benders, each sitting in a chair at their stations. I relaxed: they couldn't see us or hear us. Tubes ran from the console to their mouths, supplying them with oxygen and water. Fiber optic cable ran from the console to their eyes, so they'd never have to be disturbed by turbulence when looking through their gun sights. Hoses ran from the console to their groins, so that they'd never have to leave their chairs. Wires ran from the console to their ears, so they'd only hear the radio communication from the rest of the crew. Completely closed off from the outside world, this is how the eggheads say all warriors will fight in the future. I wonder if this is the future of the rest of us, too.

I draw my little snub-nosed revolver and attach the suppressor. It's got a cylinder that meshed together to make a seal when it fires, so no little casings go flying out and making noise, either. Pop! Pop! Pop! I shot each of them through the skull and pried them from their chairs. Koko and I then raced as fast as we could to the bridge. With a gust of air she blew down the door. I'm sure you understand how this little song and dance goes by now.

"Loaders are gonna start wondering why the guns aren't firing anymore," Koko said. "Get down there fast, I'll take over the bridge for now."

Koko and I moved with purpose to the gun deck. All she had to do this time was simply knock on the door. It opened right up, and the air benders inside were met with a staccato of Koko's burp gun. As she limped back to the bridge, I topped off the rounds in the ammo hoppers and then made way to the fire control station and strapped myself in. I attached the fiber optic lenses to my eyes and my head throbbed as my vision was filled with radiant green snow. I adjusted the tracking and dialed in the resolution until a green and black image began to materialize. Was it the ground? Yeah I think so. I swiveled the gun around and checked the loading: forty millimeter, high explosive incendiary. Not bad.

"Look east," Koko said over the radio. "I'm bringing a pair of zeppelins to you. Hold your fire till I give the order."

I felt the zeppelin I was in begin to lurch and turn on its new course.

"Come in Durga one. Why have you broken formation? Is something wrong?"

"Go for the aircraft carrier first, so it can't sortie," Koko said. "then we go for the bomber."

I aimed my cannon at the airship and zoomed in. at one kilometer away, it was like the eraser on the tip of a pencil held at arm's length; close range for the kind of weaponry we were using.

"Now!"

The tracers arced through the sky like the steaming tails of a kite. Even through the blurry monochromatic optics I could see the other airship erupt in flames, lurching around in confusion before nose diving into the ground.

The radio channel exploded next. Screams and panic and interrogatives. The bomber began to break formation before I opened fire, but a lucky round found its way to the bombers magazine. For a moment, my optics stop working, completely whited out from the conflagration. Several seconds later our gunship rolls back and forth from the shockwave. There's nothing left but atoms.

"We're ground pounding now." Koko's voice cracks over the radio. "got 'bout twenty minutes till aircraft show up and swat us."

I can see and feel Koko changing the zeppelin's course again. We're gliding over farmland in the dead of night. Over two kilometers away I can see flashes of guns like fireflies. One kilo closer I can see houses as clear as day. I wonder if they can see me. I wonder if they can even hear me. I check to make sure it's the enemy and not friendlies, but you can never be one hundred percent sure. I cross my fingers and pull the trigger. There's a pause and the rounds seem to hang in the air. And then those fireflies are drowned in a miniature sun. the blast splashes like water as droplets of incendiary jelly splatter all around. For the next half a minute, the airbenders don't dare shoot at the other side of the fight. One of them does dare break the ceasefire and I dump round after round onto his position.

On to the next fight. The gunships swings around and we head to the next location. Koko sets the ship to autopilot and comes to join me as we slowly drift across the battlefield. Our tracers streak like comets across the void, reaching out to tear apart people that can't even see us, that can't even fight back. In the span of minutes we're killing dozens. But we've only been here for minutes. the crew that we killed had been doing this for hours. Think of all the soldiers that fight wars. All the bravery and acts of heroism. When they die it's not face to face with some enemy at some disputed barricade. It's in a state of confusion, killed by an enemy miles away. Since its invention, the majority of soldiers to die in combat have been killed in by artillery.

But even then, in the end it is boot on the ground, not bombs that win the war. You can blast all the people to bits, but you need people of your own to hold the land you've laid to waste. I don't pretend to be better than those bombs – I see that even clearer now that I'm the one dropping them. I don't pretend to be better than the boots either. In spite of all our actions and antics tonight, I realize even more clearly that people like me do not win wars or battles, just try to tip them into someone's favor. If war's used to have 'Heroes,' I can tell you that they don't anymore and if they did I'm not one of them.

"I see tanks down there!" Koko says. "I'm switching to the big cannon. You know what to do."

I unstrapped myself ran down to the gun deck.

Thwump!

With every shot the 105mm gun kicks like an elephant-mule. With every shot I heft a twenty pound shell into the gun and slide it on in the breach, going elbow deep.

Thwump!

There's a rhythm to it that picks up the more you do it it

Thwump!

Heft, fist, step way back,

Thwump!

The pace of Koko and our grotesque love making picks up.

Thwump!

I trust Koko enough to know that she's hitting whatever she's shooting at.

Thunk!

The jolt sent me stumbling over off balance. That wasn't a thwump that was –

The impact struck me so fast I didn't even know I had been hit. By the time I felt the pain of being struck by over five hundred kilos buck backwards at ten meters a second, I was on the other side of the room.

"Koko! Were we jus – "

"Yes!" she shouted, "get up here on the guns, now!"

As I limped up off the ground I gasped for breath, and with each breath came a sharp, unstoppable pain. It doesn't Burn, nor does it sting or ache. The pain of broken bones is very unique sort of misery.

But I fought against the pain with every step. Every second counted. I collapsed into the chair next to Koko.

"Two fighters on us," Koko said as I switched to the anti-aircraft guns.

Tracers scratched their way into the night sky, arcing past the plane as it banked back around towards us. I missed. Koko waited patiently and then fired when she knew she would hit. A stream of red erupted from her turret, licking the fighter as it past us.

"Where's the other one? Where's the other one?"

"Lost track of it," I said.

And that's when the rockets hit us, and we loss half of our gas bladders.

For what it's worth, I saw the streaks of lead belching from koko's gun tear the wing of the responsible fighter clean off.

She ripped the goggles from both of our faces as she erupted from the chair.

"We're losing altitude. Suit up and get us some lift, now!"

Shrugging off the pain in my ribs I limped along the corridor the maintenance section of the airship. The radio cackled to life, "Hei Bai, it's Koko. We're coming down hard and need an extract. Stand by for coordinates…"

I put the heat-proof suit on and strapped it tight. I looked like I was some sort of deep sea diver wrapped in tinfoil. It kept all the heat out but it sure kept the heat in, too. I clumsily climbed the ladder in my suit to the airship's gas bladders. they had an airlock for maintenance. And I climbed inside. Breathing off of my regulator, every single raspy metallic breath I took was deafening. That's what I thought, until the airlock closed and hissed as it swapped out my air for the gas-bladder's mix of nitrogen and helium. I could feel the nose of the airship begin to tilt downward… could this airlock pressurize any slower?

"Hiro!" my headset radio screamed in my ear, "we're falling to fast and starting to lose buoyancy in the nose, you gotta get that gas bladder heated up in temperature. I think the arcing element is busted."

With a heavy clunking sound the inner airlock door swung open and I stumbled into the gas bladder. Sure enough the oversized spark plug was out of alignment. These suits were also supposed to conduct electricity around your body to protect you from something like that, but I'm not sure I trusted getting too close to it. One option left, I guess, and it wasn't going to be fun. I took off my glove and arced lighting from my fingertips into the receiving end of the spark gaps.

"Whatever you're doing's working… hold on!"

My feet buckled as she steered the airship with a gust of wind.

"brace yourself!"

In her defense she tried her best. The huge blast of wind pushed off the ground to cushion us, but that didn't stop the blimp from slamming into the ground and sent me bouncing around the gas bladder. Any landing you can limp away from is a good one, I guess.

"Hiro!" Koko shouted, "Are you OK?"

Couldn't talk with this respirator in my mouth. Had to get out fast… There was a rupture in the side of one of the bladders leading to the corridor. I squeezed and struggled through it only to get out just as the airlock door depressurized and opened. Figures.

As I stumble my way through the corridor and the gaping hole in the airship that leads outside, I pull my helmet off my face.

"Koko!" I shout.

"I'm right here!" I hear from a few meters away. I turn to look at her, and suddenly I'm blinded by a pair of hi-beams.

I Fall to the ground deaf and dumb and blind as the machinegun on top of the truck opens fire. The supersonic booms of the bullets going next to my face explode in my ears. As far as I know, I'm somehow not dead.

"Watch behind you, moron!"

A familiar voice… Peng?

I looked behind and saw the ventilated body of the Airbender that was about to shoot us.

"Give us a head up next time, for Yue's sake!" Koko said.

"You can complain about it later," Hei-Bai this time. "Just get in the car"

Hei Bai swung the armored car around next to use and the door popped open to Chang's friendly face with an outstretched arm. We climbed inside just as the bullets began to ping against our steel.

I didn't think he'd do it. Koko definitely didn't think he'd do it. But here he was. Here we all were. In a tin can bouncing up and down over the countryside, over ten kilometers deep in enemy territory. And now racing back to the friendlies as fast as we could. Koko might not have trusted Hei Bai and to be fair I had some slight doubts too, but I hadn't trusted Peng. He could have shot me on 'accident' any time he wanted to and probably wouldn't have had to admit it was an 'accident.' Could have just as easily claimed it was the enemy. But he didn't shoot me. As a matter of fact he saved my life. I guess I owe him a favor right now.

His heavy roof machinegun is still chugging along. The only thing that matches the sound of it firing is the sound of the incoming rounds striking our armor. It's rather deafening and violent, even when we're safe. If you want to get the idea of what it sounds like, take a tin and fill it with glass marbles of various size and weight. Now hold that tin can up over your head as high as you can, and slowly dump the contents into an empty ceramic toilet bowl. That should sound about right. On top of that sound was Hei Bai's driving, bouncing and swerving at full speed as I tried to escape. The most dangerous part of a mission is always extraction. As safe as we were from bullets, if a single rocket hit us we'd be vaporized in an instant. But that didn't concern me right now. That was out of my control. If it happens, it happens – maybe there was something to Buno's fatalistic hippy talk after all. So given the circumstances I did the only thing I could. The one thing that soldier's learn to do best. Not even the pain in my ribs could stop me. I fell into the deepest sleep of my life.


	13. Chapter 12 epilogue

CABBAGE CORP

MEMO

To: President Mui

From: Vice President Xing

Carbon Copy: Offices of the War Department

Subject: huge profit from runoff problem

I'm sure it's come to every one's attention that there is a major ecological problem on our hand and something's needed to be done about it. The fertilizer CABBAGE FOOD ™ is responsible for a series of severe eutrophication and harmful algal blooms (HAB)s due to CABBAGE FOOD ™ runoff into local water suplies. These HABs, mostly from over-growth of the organism _Cyanobacteria_ produce the chemical 3a _S_ -(3a-α,4-α,10a _R_ *))-2,6-diamino-4-(((amino-carbonyl)oxy)methyl)-3a,4,8,9-tetrahydro-1 _H_ ,10 _H_ -pyrrolo(1,2-c)purine-10,10-diol, better known as **[ REDACTED ]** , as a byproduct once they've have exhausted the majority of their natural resources. This chemical is highly **[ REDACTED ]** , causing **[ REDACTED ]**. This has already resulted in several human deaths, dozens becoming sick, and complete devastation to local fish stocks, along with the death of any livestock that were drinking from contaminated water. Estimates are at 50 million yuans in damage.

This is certainly a crisis for our company. However, it is well known that the word for crisis is composed of the characters meaning both 'danger' and 'opportunity,' and this is most certainly an opportunity for our company. It has been discovered that the chemical **[ REDACTED ]** can be put to a number of profitable uses, most notably pesticides and military **[ REDACTED ]**. In the words our head scientist

" _while I am displeased morally with Cabbage Corps' ™ inability to own up to the suffering it is causing by not fixing the phosphorous runoff problem, I am still pleased to be attached to this project to develop this new line of insecticide; this could save millions of people from malaria, and help to feed them with fresh food untouched by blight or locusts. While I still wish Cabbage Corps ™ would do something about the current problem it created, I hope that this new development will outweigh that damage, and that something bad be turned into something good."_

DR Huang is certainly right about this last statement. The whiz kids ran the numbers, and the potential profit is in the hundreds of millions. As a matter of fact, it is so profitable that we'd actually be making more money focusing R & D on the **[ REDACTED ]** and letting the runoff problem run its course and paying the fines that might be levied against us than we'd lose from pumping money into R & D to fix the runoff problem. Legal says it's unlikely that we'd be fined anyway. Can't blame a company because some farmers can't read instructions. That would be silly.

 _Edit: DR Huang has since been terminated for holding unpatriotic views contrary to the Harmonious Worker's Party of the Earth Kingdom_


	14. Chapter 13

I woke up that morning in my bedroom. No… It wasn't my bedroom, it was some stranger's. And it wasn't morning either. Blocking the afternoon sunlight from my eyes I took in the air whose vinegar smell accosted my nose. Most likely I was only smelling myself. It was no soldier's room I was in, the walls were painted and covered in a floral patterned wallpaper. The brown carpet was stained and there some little plastic dolls in the corner. Across from them, my combat vest and scattergun. But as I stepped my feet to the floor, my joints creaked louder than the old boards beneath my feet. Wincing with each step from the pain in my ribs, I clutched at the dressing wrapped across my torso. I shuffled through the door jam, whose sides were lovingly decorated in crayon, notched green lines with numbers in age and height just like my mother used to do for me.

"Koko!" I shouted. "Koko! Where are you?"

"Downstairs!" I heard Buno's voice call out. "And keep it down, she's resting."

I slumped my way down the hallway and down the stairs to be greeted by a thoroughly modern kitchen. Buno, Hei Bai, Thein Kyu, and Chang all stat around the kitchen table. They looked like they were having a late lunch but the bags under all their eyes said breakfast. Though no one looked more tired than Hei Bai. Buno and Hei Bai sat beside eachother, papa and mama of Jian One. While Buno sipped a cold tea, Hei Bai had a dark bitter water tribe drink from the southeast called coffee. It was like tea but stronger and has started to become popular with the kids and eccentric types these days. Hei Bai drank straight from an entire pot he had brewed for himself. Thein Kyu produced a chair and beckoned me to sit with them.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Capital City," said Buno. "a civilian's house. They've evacuated for a shelter."

"A lot of our forces have pulled into the city, preparing for invasion. Thanks to you, it might never come," said Hei Bai. He handed my a cup of hot tea.

I went to grab it and flinched in pain.

"You burned that hand last night," he said. Hei Bai. He pulled some water out of the tap and wrapped a bolus around my hand, performing his ancient art of Water Tribe healing. The water was almost humming and glowing a neon blue color. "Take it easy. Did you know you had a flail chest? Whatever hit you, if you had inhaled when it did, your lungs would have popped. I'll have to get Koko's leg later," he said. "Really twisted it up last night."

"What do you mean… might never come?"

"The Nomads have halted their advance and pulled back. They're in complete disarray right now. They've never lost an airship before. Now they've lost three, and they have no idea what actually happened. There were a total of nine airships in that battle group and the remaining six completely withdrew from. The rumor going about now is that the Oni of Si Wong has destroyed all nine gunships. It's hugely embarrassing for them. Now we have what we need to sue for peace."

"You think Du Lin is gonna approve of what is technically a surrender?"

"Of course I do." said Hei Bai. "This was her plan. In fact, she's in Republic City right now to make a case to the Avatar and to the representatives of the Air Sovereignty."

"What if they don't stop though?" 

"I guess it's all hands on deck then. Call in the reservists, start drafting, maybe track down every electricity bender we can find and crack open the mothballed Fire Nation railguns. Oni of Si Wong might have to make an appearance too."

"He didn't last night?"

"No," said Hei Bai. "Not yet."

Hei Bai continued to recount the events of the last twenty four hours.

One of the big problems with blimps is that… well, they're blimps. They're slow. They're big targets. A whole lot of money, time, and danger could be spared if they never had to land. So whatever province could afford them would build Tians. Massive towers, kilometers tall, suspended by balloon high altitude kites. It wasn't as crazy as it sounds. These of course weren't meant for civilians; they also doubled as high altitude aircraft hangers, cutting precious minutes off of the time it would take interceptors to reach their intended altitude. The tower in Jia was such a tower, named Tian two Two for its height of two kilometers.

Armed with flak towers and a squadron of interceptors, the Tian Two could defend itself against no less than one seventy strike fighters. It had only a single flaw – the Air Sovereignty attacked the tower with no less than two hundred strike fighters

Jia responded later that day. Du Lin wanted to shut down any communication that the Air Nation had in the region. One of the things that makes instant communication possible in this day and age is the Bison system, developed by _the_ Sokka himself. It was a series of several hundred high altitude balloons floating around the Jetstream at the equator, each carrying radio repeater equipment. New ones had to be released every hundred days or so take place of the old ones, but it meant reliable world-wide radio communication. So Du Lin's response was to blast down every single one floating over Jian airspace. This left a huge hole in world-wide radio communications, making her quite unpopular. Getting the planes high enough to launch rockets at the balloons without help from Tian Two was also a very costly ordeal. I think to Du Lin it was about spiting the Air Sovereignty at any cost. It certainly didn't make any friends. The blind spot we were poking in the radio balloons would eventually circle the globe, cutting off radio for a solid month wherever it was.

"It's not a good thing we did… they might come after us harder now."

"And they're gonna have a doubly hard time doing it, if they do. Now we sue from a position of strength."

I finished my tea and went upstairs to the master bedroom. I knocked on the door and Koko beckoned me to enter. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, still in her crusty uniform.

"How are you feeling, Koko?" I asked.

"My leg hurts," she winced, "But it doesn't hurt too bad."

"No, I mean, how are _you_ feeling."

She scowled, "Are you asking if last night was good for me too?"

"Well, yes," I said.

Koko's sinewy shoulders drooped as if they were under great weight, and she looked down at the floor as if the words she couldn't find would sprout out of the carpet. There were none there.

"I'd like to say that we made a difference. We accomplished our objectives, even when I thought we were gonners. You know, I think we make a good team."

"Yeah, I think we do make a good team. C'mon! We're soldiers. Mercenaries even. We stopped their army from advancing and now there's a real chance for peace before anyone else has to die."

"No, Hiro." She said. "The Party won't stop. They won't ever stop."

Koko rose from her feet and limped over to another child's doll, plucking it from the floor. She hugged it against her breast and said. "This is all so tiresome… sometimes I wish I could still just get to be a girl."

But we can't go back. I, too, thought about what life must be like in this house. Was there laughter? Were there jokes told that no one would ever hear besides this family? How much love was there here? I thought about our lives. Papa Buno and momma Hei Bai and Hou Yi and little Peng and Koko. And uncle Peng could visit us from time to time and we'd have have our family pet Rando… gah, what a joke. It could never work. We were soldiers, killers. And right now we had a war to survive, let alone even win.

They won't stop. They won't ever stop.

I remember as a child standing transfixed to the music that filled the crowded subway as we waited for our train. In the corner by the stairs was an old and disheveled looking man playing a the 2nd movement of Cao Cao's 5th. I remember my mother kneeling down beside me, putting her hand on my shoulder and looking me in the eyes

"It sounds beautiful, doesn't it?" she asked. I nodded. My mother smiled, "Food and drink nourishes your body, but music is what feeds and nourishes your soul."

I remember my mother then held my hand as she put some money into the musician's violin case.

I remember my mother trying to cover my eyes and briskly walk away as the plain clothes police officer of the Party suddenly swarmed him and dragged him away for playing a traditional and 'disloyal' piece of music. The Party would never stop.

Hei Bai's voice called down the hallway, "Koko, you awake yet? I need to take a look at your leg."

Koko dropped the doll on the floor..

"Catch you later, Hiro."

She limped her way out of the room and down the hall to Hei Bai. I left after picking the doll up and setting her face-up on the bed.

I went to the stairs and took them up to the roof, the only place I hadn't been yet. This was a house in the city. It was new, but built flat topped like one of the Old houses. I opened the door and was greeted to Peng sitting in a chair with a pair of binoculars and a mountain of cigarette butts.

"Welcome back, Hiro."

I pulled up a chair to the little table next to Peng and sat down. By now the sky had become and overcast grey. The city streets were devoid of the signs of life aside from the ocasional patrolling satomobile or the mechatanks standing guard in the distance. Somewhere, over the horizon, was the temporarily halted airbender army.

"...good to see you, Peng. You saved my life back there."

"Don't mention it."

Peng pulled out another cigarette and I lit it for him. He put it to his lips and took a drag.

It was odd to see him out of uniform, only wearing civilian clothes. The the khakis and short collared button shirt with breast pockets that had become so popular in the Earth Kingdom. Yet still he wore his checkered bandana.

"Must feel good, being the hero? Getting to be like the Oni?"

"No." I said. "In fact, I'm terrified. No one has ever done something like this, and now all the rules have been thrown out the window. We're standing on the edge of cliff."

"And no one will ever know who did it either," Peng smirked. "We'll make our own fate now. And whatever road that takes us down, we'll walk it in lockstep."

"I… didn't take you for sentimental. You know to be honest I was surprised you didn't shoot me last night."

"What? Shoot you? What are you, stupid?"

"Maybe?"

Peng unwrapped his bandana from his neck and unfurled it.

"My younger brother Tiao Jiu Yan served the in the Earth Kingdom Army. This scarf was his scarf, given to him by a local in the Si Wong Desert. He was shot through the neck and killed; I couldn't save him. Oh, Hiro, you look so much like him."

Peng began to weep.


	15. Chapter 14

Every day spent in that little house felt like an eternity. Couldn't leave, for fear that we might need to leave in a hurry. Hei Bai healed Koko and my wounds, whilst staying glued to radio and a secured phone line. The solar had been turned into a war room, as he poured over the information coming from the front, all saying that nothing had changed.

Indeed, this following week was spent in an agonizing standstill. The war had abruptly dragged to a halt. The Air Sovereignty's military had not pushed past the little North Eastern corner of the peninsula they controlled. After our raid they, they didn't dare press forward for fear of taking casualties. Likewise, neither did we. More men and material were heading east, coiling up for the final strike. But nothing would happen until we were ready. Don't blame them for taking their time, either. I shuddered thinking about having to fight against air bender grenadiers. They would pop up into the air with their wingsuits before lobbing a forty millimeter down on us with their bloopguns. The only comfort I had was that I had my scattergun and many hours practice shooting clays from the fantail of a cargo freighter…

But for now we kept waiting. Hoping. As Du Lin appealed once again to the members of the Republic City council. To the Avatar himself.

All of us huddled that fateful morning around a black and white telescreen.

"—because we have worked this land with our blood, our lives, our sweat, and our bones. As one country of two nations. As two hearts beating as one," Du Lin said. The grainy colorless imagery night quite capturing her features or the fire that I knew was in her eyes. "Under my watch, my people have seen freedom, but also unimaginable barbarism at the hands of our attackers. It has not been easy, but under my watch, the native peoples of Jia have also seen the right to vote for the first time in over one hundred years."

Chang asked, "she hasn't mentioned the airbenders."

"It's better that she doesn't," said Hei Bai

"- and in the face of such senseless attacks, I come here to plead to the Avatar: do the Jian people not have the right to exist?"

It was the delegate of the Air Sovereigns to speak next.

The delegate was clad in traditional nomad garb. Head shaven. Arrow tattoos visible even in the grainy black and white imagery. He began to below such that he did not need the microphone for his choppy accented speech to reach his audience

"Jia has been derelict in her national and international duties as a sovereign state and to the Air Sovereignty as her closest neighbor. Airbenders are only a small minority in Jia as they are in every other country. But to have military patrols during election was to ensure a suppression of their votes and their rights and their freedom. Every vote counts, and the right to vote for us airbenders more than anyone at all, lest we repeat our history. The adoption of any resolution against the Air Sovereign military would give them impression to the Water Tribe that they have been exonerated from all responsibility, That they continue to defy the Air Sovereignty with impunity. It would serve further to inflame the feelings of the Nomad and Jian peoples! I ask you not to condemn the action of our military, for the sake of peace. Thank you."

The Air Sovereignty delegate sat down. After a five minute intermission, it was then that the old man - that frail and glassy eyed Avatar - rose from his dais to speak. The members of the Fire Nation kowtowed as did the those of the Earth Kingdom, Jia, and the Water Tribe. Except for Du Lin. Like the present members of the Party and the delegates of the Air Sovereignty, she remained at her station.

Reading from the teleprompter, the Avatar spoke, "All my life I've been a man of peace. Working for peace. Striving for peace. Negotiating for peace. And I am utterly convinced that what we must do now is right. The Air Sovereignty's actions can not be allowed to threaten Jia, not for peace in Jia but peace in the world. The Air Sovereignty must withdraw from the peninsula. For the sake of the world, Jia must also withdraw her military forces, lay down all her arms, and relinquish all farmland to peacekeeping forces."

There were gasps and kerfuffles as everyone turned to look at Jia's delegations. Du Lin fixed her hair before swallowing and pulling her microphone towards her.

"Jia can not accept," She said, before she and the rest of her delegation rose from their chairs. And with an even greater sound of gasping from the other delegates, they stood up and walked out of the room.

Hei Bai shut off the television.

"That's the signal. Were going now."

"Going where?" Koko asked.

"To war," said Hei Bai, "we drive east, to the Wolf's Teeth. Immediately"

We all rushed to grab our three day packs and our weapons and filed out the doorway. Buno was already waiting for in the driver's seat the satomobile, official 'government vehicle' placard draped over the front of the radiator. Even as we dogpiled into the back seats of the vehicle, Buno urged us to hurry.

I found myself crushed between Chang and Peng in middle seat of the vehicle. Crushed again to the rear as Buno floored it. We were racing through the lifeless city streets, with only a little slow down and safety honk at each intersection. Even at the checkpoints, Hei Bai waved his arms to move the guards out of the way. I had to ask, "What's the big rush?"

Hei Bai looked back from the passenger seat, "The air benders have wasted all our time bringing men and supplies to the west coast. But the invasion will be coming from the east. We can hold them, but first we have to get there. A lot of open ground between the capital and the Wolf's Teeth. I'd rather not be bombing practice."

From behind, Koko and Thein Kyu tapped me on the shoulder. They were face backwards, feet hanging out the trunk off the bumper, clutching their rifles and held in with makeshift seatbelts. I sighed, and grabbed a canteen from Hei Bai and passed it back them. Already I felt the need to urinate. It was going to be a long ride…

It was a relief to finally see fake grey Kopje's peek their crests above the horizon. We still had to drive through as see of barbed wire and tanks traps to reach the first of the fortresses. I nearly collapsed once I got out of the vehicle for the first time in hours. Of course, solutions to problems were come up with on the drive here. Thein Kyu discovered he could relieve himself directly out the back of the trunk. Koko, sitting beside him protested as she was a girl. "You are a girl, but you most definitely are not a lady," Thein Kyu retorted. I ensured that Hei Bai's canteen would never be used for drinking again.

We parked and dismounted four hundred meters from the bunker. As we walked toward the base of the first concrete monstrosity, there was already a growing number of soldiers mustering for tasking. I joined them, if only to step under the camo netting and out of the sun. Hei Bai had already gotten to work instructing soldiers around him.

"- and Bao's squad, go to the village of Ikko _here_ , there's about sixty people there, water tribe and native mixed. On the way back, hit the Tonrok's farm. He's stubborn. North of that is all Native land. Past marker sixty two it's too sparse to spare the the manpower. We'll be scattering evacuation order pamphlets from planes instead. If you run into any Natives on the way through though, stop and spread the word. Get back here by twenty two hundred to dig in on the periphery. Don't make yourself at home though, we're going to be ceding ground and -"

"Are any of you guys actually listening to what he's saying?" the voice sounded familiar.

"Hello, Pata" Hei Bai said.

"You all know this is craziness, right? We're being _invaded_ by the full might of the Earth Kingdom under the blessing of the Avatar and he wants us to waste time evacuating tribals, and then *ceding ground*?" Pata Dag-Patta asked rhetorically

"I'm the just the messenger, my orders come from on high and intelligence was thorough"

Ah, the spooks. I almost don't blame Pata. A soldier could never trust his life to the intel boys.

"Well i am not Intelligence -"

"That much is certain"

"- and I don't care what plan they've come up with how can you possible hope to stem the tide. A swampbender, of all people."

"Ok then. If you think you're man enough to handle this, then why don't you beat me fair and square? A gentleman's wager. One round only."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course I am. You're a tough guy. Shouldn't be a problem for something like you, unless you're not man enough to take me. One round. A canteen of water each, and no lacerating edges."

By now a circle to form around the two of them; whispers and murmurs and bets passed between them. Pata's eyes glanced shifted nervously left and right. He couldn't back down now. Not with the growing crowd and his own honor at stake. He would have to fight.

I saw some of the younger enlisted men run off back to their units, shouting "hey! hey! get over here, two of the officers are fighting!"

Squaring off from each other, Hei Bai and Pata began wrapping their hands with bandages. The full canteens on their belts were opened. There was no backing away now. But Pata was tall and strong built like an oak tree. In comparison, Hei Bai was but a twig.

"No hard feelings, Pata."

Pata swung first, a jab and a cross. Hei Bai leaned and ducked both of them before catching Pata's knee strike with his palms. They momentarily disengage to create space.

Pata pulled a bolus of water from his canteen, whipping it fast for Hei Bai's head with a karate chop. Spinning around, Hei Bai caught it and hurled it back at Pata's feet, turning the ground to mud. Pata rushed him in frustration.

A flurry of strikes and punches assailed Hei Bai, drowned out by the cheering from the crowd. Hei Bai did not strike back once. In fact, he hardly even blocked a strike either. Instead, he dodged them. No, dodging would take speed and effort. Instead, Hei Bai moved like a wet noodle. He didn't water bend - he was water. His movements were not effortless like an experienced fight, but effortless like a an unsteady drunk. Every punch, hit, kick was sluggishly danced around or deflect to the side.

Hei Bai disengaged as Pata, settling into a more tense posture and circling around Pata. His footwork was impeccable, and through it all his hand, raised en garde, were never closed into a fist. Pata, dripping with sweat, glowered at Hei Bai. Losing his temper, Pata charged with one last wild swing, but Hei Bai caught him and pushed himself to the side and out of the way.

Pata stood their, dripping sweat, in that small puddle of mud with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. "Come.. on… fight me… coward!" he spat at Hei Bai. But Hei Bai took a swig of water from his canteen as he strolled towards Patta, splashing the rest of the canteen's contents at Pata's feet.

Patta tried to throw another swing at Hei Bai, and this time Hei Bai had his whole body coiled up like a snake. As pata tried to throw the his punch, he suddenly toppled over, tripping, not realizing that both his feet had been rooted to the ground with ice…

Crack!

The strike came as Pata fell face-first onto it. Sweat and teeth soaked everyone nearby as the blow connected to Pata's jaw. This wasn't just any uppercut. Behind it was the full force of Hei Bai's body - the explosive force of his legs synchronized with the rotation of his torso made for a devastating strike. Pata's forward momentum reversed, and he launched backwards, landing on his shoulder blades.

The crowd gasped.

"Medic! Get a medic!" someone shouted as a crowd swarmed around the limp Patta. Two orderlies scooped his body onto a litter. Hei Bai shook the pain from his bleeding knuckles.

"That!" shouted Hei Bai as the stunned crowned turned to him, "That is how we defeat the Earth Kingdom! Not with the brute force but the yielding of water and the crashing of waves! Water is about change. Like air, it is fluid. But it is also ice, and steam, and even a trickle will cut it's way through mountains and stone and earth"

Breaking from the group, Hei Bai followed the medics after Pata into a tent. He splashed Pata awake who then tried to push him away.

"Relax. Relax!" Hei Bai commanded as he ran his hands up and down Pata's face, head, and neck. "I still need you in this fight, Pata." Patta tried to yell something but the words came out garbled.

"You've dislocated your jaw. I'll have to reset it. Otherwise you could be waiting hours for the doctor to go over his tests before he resets your jaw." Hei bai pulled a swirling, glowing ball of water up with each hand and ran it up and down sides of Pata's neck, skull, and jaw in unison.

"I'm making a nerve block, for the pain. It will make the next part less… unpleasant. Open your mouth."

Patta complied with a whimper. "Ok, no biting," said Hei Bai, sticking both his thumbs into pata's mouth, resting them on his molars and gripping the left and right half of the lower jaw tight. Hei Bai stood above him as Pata sat on the litter.

"Ok now, I need you to stay upright and keep your head and chin up. On the count of three. One… tw-"

Hei Bai thrusted down onto Pata, leaning all his sixty four kilos down on his jaw. There was an agonized yelp as it popped out of place and then back in as Hei Bai relieved tension.

Hei Bai wiped the blood from the shattered tooth off his thumbs. Pata held his hands to the now relocated joint, slowly opening and closing his mouth to work things back into place

"Th… thank y-"

"Don't pretend to like me. I don't need you to like me. I only want you to let this go." Hei Bai then signaled me to follow him as he left the tent.

As we exited, the crowd that had gathered to watch the fight was replaced by a larger crowd scrounging through supplies crates. They were loading all their gear and weapons as they clambered into satomobiles. The scouts were saddling their dragon-horses. As our team's convoy had begun to assemble and as we mounted our vehicles, the leader of one of the scouts trotted over and shouted to us.

"We have only twelve hours of safety and only twenty for before we can expect the Earth Kingdom Army in force. The people you save today will save Jia tomorrow. Every life here is precious. Now ride for your lives! Ride for the fate of Jia!" He spurred his dragon horse and was off, the rest of his mounted companions galloping off after him. They'd have the shortest mission. The little hamlets too off the beaten path for vehicles and close enough to walk back in an emergency.

But for, us, the senior officer of the garrison began to wave cars from the motor pool as if he were launching aircraft. I scrambled into the passenger seat of the off-road vehicle with Buno at the wheel The rest of the squad was in several vehicles behind us. When our turn came, Buno put the pedal to the floor and we launched off like an aircraft too. The whole convoy raved off together, sun setting behind us.

As the road split, most of the vehicles ahead of us continued straight as our squad's vehicles and a dozen others split south toward the the ocean. The radio crackled to life with Hei Bai's voice, "good luck out there, guys. Have fun in the boondocks. Let 'ole Tonrok know he still owes me twenty Yuan."

"Pleasures all yours, Hei Bai." someone answered.

"Sorry, not sorry," said Hei Bai. The expression was native one. It had started to become a sort of unofficial motto for the Jian special operations teams like ours used to fighting behind enemy lines. Now we behind enemy lines in our own country. Not against children with two hours of training, but against real soldiers who were my former countrymen.

The road veered off to the right and we followed it east. the smell of salt spray stung in my nose. Soon enough the sun was setting behind us and the waves glittered in the twilight. Our convoy hurtled down the road, driving straight into pitch blackness. I could just make out the the tops of houses and roofs and antennas sticking out of the water.

The radio crackled to life again. "All Jian and Dao teams: The chancellor has landed safely in Capitol City." Cheers erupted from the convoy and all the drivers honked their horns at each other. I slumped down into my chair.

"What's wrong, Hiro?" Buno asked. After a moment of silence he said, "look over to the south, what do you see?"

I looked back over the coastline and was treated to the sound of gulls and the sight and smells of rot and decay. I could see the roofs of submerged houses stretching for many kilometers into the ocean. The sun Sun was setting nowhere near over the water. If you were expecting some sort of beautiful or symbolic imagery, sorry, you're not going to get it.

"This whole coastline was once a tourist attraction," he continued. "A get away for wealthy Fire Nation vacationers. But when the great thaw came, and the Northern Water Tribe holy city was no more, the flooding turned it into a death trap. All these cottages, submerged in what used to be our homes. And it is what will save us. Because of it, there is not a single Li of coastline in this country suitable for amphibious landing. The only place ships can load and unload is the Dragon's Tail fjord that reaches the capital, and it's shores are near vertical cliffs.

We were once are all one with nature. Man has fallen out of balance with nature. Man has lost sight of the Way. Now, nature is taking back what man thought was his."

Still, It did little to calm me. But when I heard on the radio that Chang's family had been successfully evacuated, it brought a smile to my face. It warmed my heart.

It was around midnight that we reached our first village, a sprawling little native hamlet. Our security forces immediately set to work at the difficult job of maintaining a perimeter, as it was hard to judge just where the village ended. Mortar crews began firing lunar shells; packed like origami they unfolded into sky lanterns from the rotational force of the the shell's fins. Held aloft for hours by the heat of their magnesium candles, they bathed the whole area in cool blue moonlike glow. The brims of our hats cast dark shadows veiling our faces.

Meanwhile, small squads like ours went hut to hut, house to house, waking residents. We let Chang and Thein Kyu take point on this one. Most of the natives did not want to leave. In fact, most of them probably wouldn't leave. At least until Chang was able to find the village chief, and the two spoke back and forth in their native tongue. The chief was a scrawny man looking older than he probably was. A doubtless survivor of many bouts of malaria and even the mark of Shapona Sheetla, with a balding head and wise frizzy beard. despite our best efforts, he seemed flustered.

They talked for a couple minutes until there was some sort of understanding about the rain we've had and omens, and then we had to leave. There was one waterbending family in the village - a young husband and wife living in a hut but wearing the modern suit and tie and sundress, armed with a briefcase. They needed less convincing. "Well," said the man, "someone's gotta help water the crops. I liked the lifestyle, just not the dress code." As much as he'd like to fit in, he was not beholden to the will of the chief like the others.

As we drove off to the the next village, leaving one squad and an empty buss behind, Thein Kyu told me, "We don't have much time. There's no point wasting time with the whole village. If we can convince the chief the rest will follow, unless there's a near unanimous vote against him."

This sort of occurrence continued for many hours, village to village. I'd like to say the Water Tribe farmsteads were easier. They were not. Without the chiefs to get in the way, and with radios and emergency signals between each neighboring farm in case of troublemaker attacks, convincing families to leave was a little easier individually. But, we all learned quickly to stand to side of doors and not in front of them when we knocked.

Time passed as we moved from town to town. The sun had not yet risen over the horizon, but we no longer had need of the flares. Still, it was dark. Koko, Hei bai, Buno Peng and myself would get this farm, as Chang and Thein Kyu attended to native family up the road. Peng swore as he stepped on what looked like a tripwire on the way to our next house. Jayvin's farm. Jayvin had also dug a trench around it, put inviting false cover around that which could be easily penetrated by Jian rifles, and shored up the walls off their house with sandbags.

Hei Bai pounded on the door, "Jian Army, open up!"

We were all standing to the side by the door behind the sand bags as the bullets shredded through the door. "I said Jian Army!" shouted Hei Bai.

"That's exactly what a troublemaker would say," Jayvin shouted through the door.

Hei Bai splashed some water from his canteen at the bottom of the door then bent it under the crack.

"Gah!" Jayvin exclaimed, before opening the door and wringing out his shirt. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Haven't you heard the news? We're being invaded. We're trying to evacuate you."

"Now wait here just a minute…"

And then the arguments started again

 _Yes, evacuation_

 _No, it's not mandatory_

 _I don't care if you can stay, you shouldn't stay_

 _You'll come back to your home later, arrangements have already_ _been made_

 _You fool! Is this patch of dirt worth you and your family's lives?_

But it was, wasn't it? Isn't that what this whole war was being fought over?

Hei Bai, ignoring the old man's dithering, clicked his radio to do the the quarter hourly status checks. "Delta five this is jian one, over." He waited a few seconds still ignoring Jayvin. "Delta five this is jian one. What is your status, over."

Hei Bai pouted, "their radios must be acting screwy again. You guys can handle this while I find delta leader?"

"You got it, boss," Buno said to Hei Bai before he turned and began to walk off down the road. By now there was enough of the morning twilight to make out more than silhouettes. The time wasted arguing with this coot wasn't worth it. Buno tried to radio the security team to pack it on up and move onto the next one.

No luck… could their radios not be working either? I could make out one of the soldiers in their squad about one hundred and fifty meters that-a-way.

"Oy!" shouted Koko at the man as we waved for them to come over. He turned to us but did not respond. I could make out that he keyed his radio as well, but we heard nothing.

"Are you serious?" asked Peng. "There's no way all our radios are broken broken.

I borrowed the binoculars from Koko and began to scan toward him as Koko waived at the soldier again. And before I lined my binoculars up onto the man I scanned through the bush and could just make out the parachute…

"Get down!"

The explosion deafened me as it threw me to the ground. Timber and dirt and sand were sent in every direction, pelting us with debris. And as i came back to my feet i realized the explosion had struck the opposite side of the house. Jayvin let out a blood curdling scream.

"Suppressing fire!" Buno shouted as we emptied our magazines into the the the rows of foxtail millet.

"My children!" Jayvin shrieked before his wild eyed wife ran out of the door carrying one of the children and dragging a shell shocked child behind her by the wrist. A sigh of relief was exhaled from Jayvin's lips.

"Heads up!" Koko shouted, and as I looked up I saw the EKA paratrooper practically landing on top of us. Just before he could bend a pit under our feet, Koko cast the man aside with a gust of wind catching his parachute and hurtling him from the sky like a ragdoll.

"Your keys," Buno demanded. The wife already had them and Buno shoved her into the family's utility vehicle. Then he looked at Jayvin and asked, "You have emergency connection to your neighbor, yes? Is it radio or landline?"

"It's a landline" Jayvin shouted, covering his ears.

"The paratroopers are jamming our radios. We need to get these civilians out of here, link back up with the rest of our soldiers, and send the word out to the next town," Buno said to us, squatting against the sandbags as he reloaded. As I looked up I could see many more parachutes ind the distance, coming down from high altitude. "Koko, you just volunteered as our runner. We'll drive these civilians out and you jump off at the fork at the road and get Hei Bai and the other squads formed up on foot."

"You drive them out of here," Peng said. "I've been itching for this."

Buno took a deep breath, "Fine. Covering fire on my mark."

Buno shouted and we leapt to our feet under cover of a berm of dirt that Peng erected for us. We dumped our mags backs into the millet at the moving grass. I couldn't tell how many soldiers there were but it was starting to feel uncomfortable. Buno had jumped into the driver's seat as Koko hopped up and hung from the passenger side step boards

"I'll kill them! I'll kill all of them!" Jayvin shouted as he tried to run back inside his house.

Peng grabbed the man by his collar and hoisted him into the bed of the ute.

"Go! Go! Go!" Koko yelled, pounding on the roof of the vehicle with her free hand. Buno took off, spraying us with dirt and pebbles.

Peng and I gave everything we had to keep their heads down. Just keep the their noses in the dirt long enough to keep them from shooting the satomobile as they made their getaway. The Two of us had run out from the cover of the house and into the waist high millet along the side of the driveway to get an angle on the enemy.

The first rifle grenades landed past us, ranged about twenty meters too far and detonating with a pair of loud cracks. Peng and I jumped, rolled and sprinted to the left. The next pair of explosions came in and landed about twenty meters too short. We juked to the right this time, and back a bit, hoping to lose contact in the the blades of grass. If it weren't for all the vegetation we'd probably be plucking shards of metal from our skin by now. As we slinked off through the millet, the final grenade was right on the money for our last position.

"Pretty boy, we gotta get back inside that house and raise the alarm. My rifle's run dry. You coming with me?"

"Of course I am!" I said. I loaded my mast magazine as Peng drew his pistol.

"Let's go!"

The two of us ran hunched over through the millet. We stayed tucked down as long as we could until we could make out the silhouette of the enemy across from us. We abandoned all caution, running in a standing spring as I poured fire from my palm into the crops in front of us, burning a cloud of thick smoke between us. Bullets snapped near our heads.

Just outside the house was an EKA soldier raising his gun to us from, close enough to make out his face. Peng spun around like a dervish, bending one of the sandbags from the house and whipping it into soldiers temp with an audible crack as his skull smacked into the window frame.

"Stay out of the trenches!' Peng shouted. He groaned as pulled the walls of the trench around house together, burying a pair of paratroopers alive.

We both stacked up across from each other on opposite sides of the door. I liked it better when Jayvin was shooting at us. Peng pulled the contents of a sandbag into a small floating bolus that began to flatten out and spin. It was bended red hot as all the grains melted together into a spinning glass shuriken. Pistol in one hand, glass blade spinning beneath the other, Peng nodded to me. Rifle tucked under the crook of my arm, I nodded back.

We both rounded the corner into the room one after the other. Foyer - clear! Peng stays forward as i check left. washroom - clear! Inching our way around the the down the hallway, Peng comes round the corner as I rush straight past him to the other corner of them room and about-face. The lone Earth Kingdom soldier didn't have time to react as the spinning glass blade was levitated straight through the side of his neck. Spine is severed before he can let out a gurgle. Living room, clear. We clear the bedrooms next.

I run straight for the radio and headset in Jayvin's room, throwing myself into the chair. Flipping through the switches and holding transmit with one hand and holding the headset mic to my face. I hope the message got out. I didn't have time time to wait around and see if the villages I hailed had heard the my mayday. Before I could get up a swarm of bullets smashed through the walls of the house and splintered the bedposts and dresser next to me.

"Hiro!" Peng shouted between the pops of his pistol "Get over here I need your rifle."

I raced down the hall and back to the living room where Peng was crouching behind the wall of sandbags and blind firing his handgun out the window.

"They're inside!"

The two of us rushed together and stood pressed back to back as he fired his pistol as a soldier rushing in from the the kitchen dropping him to the floor. I fired a pair into another soldier as he rushed in from the front door down the halway. "Reloading," shouted Peng as he squatted down the reload his gun and I pivoted around, covering his sector with my rifle over his head. He stood back up and we switched back. "Clear!" we both shouted.

Then, Like a guardian spirit, like the Avatar himself had come to save us, I heard a voice shout out, "Jian's coming in!"

Reinforcements here, covering our backside. We'd have to clear the rest of the house, or risk losing the best piece of cover in this whole empty field. Peng and I stacked up again, sweeping our way down the hallway again. Hallway clear, living room, clear. Kitchen…

Clear. This was where the first explosion had taken place. The countertops and stove were covered in dust, plaster, and splinters. The corner of the house had been blasted off, likely by a rocket or rifle grenade. This left gaping hole from waist to ceiling, two meters across. Peng pressed his back to the wall and peered with one out of the hole. The sound Sato-mounted machinguns could be heard firing in bursts through the fields, with occasional back and forth between Jian and Earth Kingdom riflemen. By our fortune, most of the paratroopers had landed outside of the current combat zone. I peeked my head around the corner, and that's when I saw the Earth Kingdom soldier raising the bore of his launch tube.

"RPG!"

I really know what happened or how it happend, but I remember jolting up in the direction I could fastest travel, directly towards Peng. I heard the rocked 'pfwoosh' as it barreled towards us.

And in that instant, I saw Peng do something I never expected. He stepped out behind me, standing in the middle of that hole, flashing his teeth, screaming, squatting into a horse stance. His face turned red as he pressed both his hands around the aether as hard as could.

The rocket struck me square in the chest.

I was bowled over to the floor. The rocked was stuck in my chest rig webbing, the tail sticking from my body like an arrow. It hissed fire from the end and I swatted it off me. It to become airborne again, bouncing off the room like a ping pong ball before it rode across the corner of the wall and ceiling and ran out of fuel. The rocket fell to the ground beside my head. It's nose cone - and fuze - hand been crushed like an aluminum can.

"You're OK?!"

"I think so… you did that?"

"I've… Oh man, I've never metal bent before."

Peng, the Magnificent.

Reaching down, he pulled me from the floor and back to cover, giving me the once over to see if I was OK. no broken ribs today. Keeping his head low, he reached across and picked up the rocket by its tail. A good sight for sore eyes, four Jian soldiers moved down the hallway to us rifles drawn. I gave them the thumbs up and urged them to stay back with my hand. 'Enemies, several, outside' I signaled to them.

"You do the honors, pretty boy." Peng chucked the rocked over his shoulder and out the window. Stepped into the open, raising the fingers of my left hand like a pistol, and fired a bolt of lightning at the dud as it sailed past a pair of paratroopers. I snapped back behind cover too fast to see the results, but the explosion rattled my teeth.

"You guys alright?" One of the water bender's asked.

"Yeah, we're OK." I said. "You know where the rest of Hei Bai's team is?"

"They're regrouped not much farther down the road. He's pulling the rest of us together into a front line. We'll be retreating once we can fix the hostile platoon size element long enough to get the last civilians out of sniper range. It's a little tricky when the enemy can bury themselves in the ground like grubs. No offence, Peng."

"None taken. We'll need to hold this pillbox a little longer then. You're squad isn't bringing up a machine gun to our position, is it?" The Jian soldier nodded.

"You know," I said, "you could've just earth bended a wall between me and that rocket, right?"

Peng shrugged and smiled, "yeah probably. Wasn't thinking at the time, just reacted somehow. Maybe next time."

Like a typewriter, the burst of automatic fire tore through the wall next to me. I flinched away, naturally as the splinters exploded from the wall. And when I looked back up, Peng was no more. The bullet tumbled through his thoughts and memories, and Peng died where he stood. I threw myself on his body, but It had already began pooling blood around it. There was nothing I could do.


	16. Chapter 15

The casket was heavy on my shoulder. Two by by, we walked in lockstep down thru the grounds of the Capitol building to the edge of the cliffs. Here we were, at the very start of the Dragon Tail fjord itself, the lawn at the back of the Capitol building. The six of us lowered the casket to the derrick where it was secured by block and tackle. We followed it's descent as we made our way down the steepest flight of stairs cut into the cliff.

Reaching the bottom of the steepest section, we retrieved the casket and began to carry it the rest of the way down, one step at a time. Hei Bai leading on the left. Du Lin leading from the right taking the place in our squad that belonged to Peng. Reaching the bottom we took our first step into the cool waters. Salt began to sting my nostrils. The sky was clear and the walls of the cliffs offered no protection from the high noon sun. Wading into the ocean would have been joyful if it weren't for the occasion.

We lowered the casket to the sea as the water began to reach up to our wastes. One by one each of us took one of our unit pins - a great bird - and placed them on the top of the coffin before pounding them in with our fists. Everyone except Du Lin, who watched us in both reverence and curiosity. A challenge coin from each of us had to suffice for Hell Money. The face of the casket was inscribed with the name 'Kun' in gold caligraphy

After bowing our heads in silence, it was Hei Bai's responsibility as our only water bender to send Peng on his way. He gave a push, and the casket began to drift out on it's journey down the fjord to the ocean. I looked up at the edge of the cliffs and saw a row of figures on either side staring down at us. Other water benders that had come as custom to pay respects. They began to rhythmically pull the casket down to fjord out to sea. Du Lin had told me that wherever the a ship in the fjord was or freight workers manning the derricks on the sides of the cliffs stood, once they saw the casket they would stop and do their part to move him out to sea, till he sank to bottom only Yue knows where several thousand Li from here.

"Before the great thaw," Du Lin told me, "it was cold enough on the ice that we would leave our dead out in the open for one entire year. All their loved ones could come and see and pay respects before the funeral pyre. Out here, we no longer have such luxuries. We've had to make do in new ways. I hope that this was still an honorable enough service for your friend."

On our return to the frontlines I drove with Hei Bai. Once again, there was a long time to ruminate, to think about what we were getting ourselves into. I asked Hei Bai, "So what are we supposed to do, now that the Oni of Si Wong is dead?"

"Do you mean Peng?" said Hei Bai, "Peng is not the Oni, Hiro. You know it's a made up fairy tail, right?"

"Of course I do! But you know what I mean."

"Peng was the Oni because people thought he was the Oni. But the Oni of Si Wong was never really Peng, not originally. It's a myth. A legend. Peng was man. As long as people are given reason to believe in the Oni, their will be an Oni. People need legends, Hiro. Something to believe in. It doesn't matter if it's true, if enough people believe it, it might as well be."

The drive was both long and exposed. Interdiction by aircraft taking the long route around the Wolf's Teeth had started to make the other Jian soldiers paranoid. At first I was happy to enter the bunker, Fort 39. Second row of teeth. This massive pillbox was one nearly forts in total They were spaced out like a checkerboard in three lines running north-south along the 300 km of the Jian peninsula . Each were crewed (ideally, personel permitting) by about 80 men. With many bunkers instead of a single line of defense, it became affordable to armor these bunkers to survive any known weapon on the battlefield. This meant a single division could hold back entire armies. But sitting under three meters of concrete, I can't shake the feeling that I am inside a tomb.

The men here are restless. The fresh garrison is now finding itself mixed with salty combat veterans of the insurgency. It reminds me of my time aboard commercial shipping, with narrow hallways and wrought iron bulkheads. Despite our proximity, we found ways to seek out our own quiet misery. For example, with triple bunk beds the berthing we were in slept eighteen men at any given time, never farther than seven meters apart. Each bed gave you about a little over sixty centimeters of vertical space, such that if you closed the curtain on the side of your bunk you immediately felt quite alone. I began to think in that space over then next several days, is this what it is like to lay in a coffin?

Peng was never very cordial to me. But I was important to him, so I guess that means something. After all, he was one of us. But you can't think about those sorts of things. It wasn't worth it. I almost craved returning to combat, not just to get away from the the awful vinegar stench of so many men, but so I didn't have to think about any of this.

By the third day I had found what might have been the only other firebender in Fort 39. A young pilot by the name of Lieutenant Amarao. His parents had Jian citizenship and so while he joined the Jian military before the declaration of independence, he had never been a member of the Fire Nation. The two of us would spend our spare time in the mess hall. It wasn't dining hours, so there was some degree of intimacy, but it was still filled with other soldiers playing cards or whatever to pass the time. The smell of tobacco stained the air. Among the other soldiers was Hei Bai who was using the space to clean his rifle, and was taking far longer than anyone had a right to.

"So… you're a firebender but they never put you on the front?"

"Well," Amarao smilled, "I scored higher on the entrance exam than most, enough to make it to the officer corps anyway. I've always wanted to be a pilot, ever since I was a child. Maybe I even wished I was an airbender. But I was still terrified they'd put me in some bending regiment even though my technique is terrible."

"As soon as they found out I was a lightning bender," I said, "They put me right into special operations."

"Yeah, and I'm a lightning bender too"

"Get out"

" But I have no technique. I've never once done firebending in anger. Never even got lessons as a kid. My parents said they didn't want to encourage violence. But I was very good at flying."

"So how'd you end up in the air force anyway?"

"My three kilometer time was over twenty minutes."

"Oh, man," I said "you didn't stand a chance."

Amarao burst out laughing, "Are you kidding, I was a varsity marathon runner in grade school."

"The recruiter must have been pissed."

"Yeah, but the test is the test. Nothing much he can do about it. How about you, joining the spec ops and what not."

"To be honest," I said, "I'm not really sure why. At the time it felt like it suited me. And after the Si Wong campaign, well, what else are you supposed to do? Where else can you go? I don't have any other education, and to start over again I guess… I guess it would feel like quitting. I don't enjoy the violence. But I guess I don't think about it much either. How'd you end up stuck in garrison like this."

"I'm waiting for a time in which they can another plane and the manpower to get me evac'd back to the capitol. I was at the western Tian tower when it was stuck by the Sovereignty"

"Oh yue!" I exclaimed. A lot of the airmen there died. But Amarao must have been a good pilot indeed to be stationed there. Docking there was likely one of the only skills that was more dangerous than landing on aircraft carriers. Pilots would approach the steel tower head on at a fixed altitude and speed. Then, they would pull up. Straight up. Guided by constant communication from the tower's air traffic control. The goal was to stall at exactly the position of of the arrestor hooks. The crew would have only the moment that the plane appeared to hang in still in mid air to capture it. If this didn't work, the pilot would have to abort

To launch, pilots climbed into their cockpits with assistance. Their planes hung on conveyor from the tail like clothes at a dry cleaner's. Take off meant dropping them nose first over the edge and pulling out of a dive. This gave the aircraft both speed and a nearly two kilometer altitude start, with only the docked airships starting higher. Amarao told me that when the tower was attacked, he was stuck in his plane in the take off position dangling over the edge. It was only the blast of a rocket that freed his plane just before the tower collapsed.

Amarao did his best to try to shoot down the Air Nomad fighters with his intercepter, but it was no use against such numbers. He was quickly shot down himself and bailed into unsecured territory. "I ditched everything but the bare essentials and ran back for the the closest fort as fast as i could. And I mean that - ran. I can't outrun satomobiles, but on foot an unencumbered person will always outrun an encumbered one over distance. So I took the longer beaten paths where their patrol vehicles couldn't follow. Being a marathon runner certainly helps, but the truth is as long as you pace yourself and have enough calories on board, a fit adult can run forever. You have to have the will to overcome the pain." he laughed again, "I'm not gonna lie, the pep-pills help too!"

"Hey, Lieutenant." Hei Bai called over to us. "When the fighting makes its way here, you'll have to fight,too, ya know?"

"Of course, sir!"

"Come over here, Lieutenant." Amarao obeyed. "You ever fire a rifle outside of basic?"

"No, sir."

"If we get attacked, you better know to fight with the rest of us," said Hei Bai, presenting him his rifle. "Demonstrate to me that you know how to field strip your service rifle."

Amarao paused for a second and then began to push pins and fold the gun open, taking out it's guts and levers.

"Good job, lieutenant. But show me you know how to remove the bolt from the bolt carrier."

Hei Bai leaned in and watched intently as Amarao fiddled with the hunk of metal until he could get it to come apart into two pieces. "This one's a little tricky," said Amarao.

"Good. now show me you know how to put it all back together." Amarao did so.

"God job, lieutenant," said Hei Bai, "you might make a good soldier yet." And then Hei Bai walked off, rifle in hand.

I heard the sound of whistling across the room and saw Koko staring at me, wide eyed. She waved for me to follow her and reaching her she grabbed me by the hand and began dragging me off as fast as she could. I asked her what her deal was but she said, "we gotta tell Chang about this." We found Chang in his bunk and dragged into a hallway. Chang seemed disinterested about Hei Bai's latest nuttery.

"So you really think Hei Bai doesn't know how to field strip his own rifle?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying!" Koko protested. "I really think something's not right about him."

"So what? He's always been off. Why don't you ask Buno or Thein Kyu about this?"

"Buno's job is to enforce the will of Hei Bai, he'll never tolerate us questioning Hei Bai. Besides, he's a police reservist, not a professional soldier. Same goes for Thein Kyu, former terr and he's in love with the guy."

"And both of you are mercenaries. That makes me and Hei Bai the only real soldiers here"

"That's my point. What if you are the only real soldier here."

I said, "hold on. Maybe everyone is just on edge right now and getting antsy"

"Have an opinion, Hiro! Back me up!"

"Look guys," said Chang. "I have more important things to worry about right now. I'm sorry." And he returned to his quarters.

I also left Koko in the other direction, stepping over a pair of soldiers sleeping in the hallway. "Ah! Come on, Hiro!" she shouted. But Koko had a point. I wanted to know now. I'd go ask Hei Bai myself.

I navigated my way through the maze of tunnels, twisting my way past the other people sleeping on the floor or leaned up against the walls on my way to Hei Bai's room. As one of the higher ranking officers, I knew he had his own personal quarters. Finding the door with his name on it, I knocked, but there was no answer. I cracked the door open and took a single step inside.

Hei Bai was right in front of me, but had not noticed. The record player, playing Cao Cao's 5th, must have been too loud for him to hear me. He was… dancing? No. He was waterbending. His eyes closed. The water spun around him as he moved gracefully. Each and every sinew in his body moved perfectly. The water danced in ways I could only faintly remember seeing move before, when i was only a small child. It danced around and encircled him, making living shapes. Each step, each gesture, each movement was beautiful. I couldn't explain why. On the stand in front of him was a manuscript written in what I first thought was a foreign language. No, it wasn't. But it was written with characters and in ways that I could not recognize. I began to cry.

Noticing me now, Hei Bai snapped his gaze to me. Before I could say anything, the water crashed to the floor and Hei Bai and pulled me fully into the room with him. His speed was like a bullet and in an instant he had spun me across his body and thrown me to the floor. One hand upon my throat and the next ready for a killing strike.

"It's me! It's me!" I shouted. He let his grip on me relax until I was able to come back onto my feet.

"You are not allowed to tell anyone about what you saw today. Understand? Answer me!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good. now tell me what you're doing here."

I swallowed, "It's nothing, sir. I just wanted to ask you a question."

"I am here. Ask it."

I had to lie now, "Just wanted to know about the state of the war. I heard that a whole armor battalion had penetrated the southern defenses."

"Not a battalion, Hiro. Nearly a whole tank brigade."

"They've broken through already?"

"No, they haven't broken through. They've been allowed to pass," Hei Bai said. "Those tanks will need supplies to keep functioning. Those forts they thought they could bypass are now springing to life and shelling their supply lines or sending their garrisons out to attack their rear. The Earth Kingdom lost a brigade of tanks without them getting to fire a single shot."

"What happens next?"

The battlestations klaxon sounded then, answering my question. "Are we under attack?" I asked.

"No," he said, "but our nearest sister is. Come hear this." Hei Bai turned off the record player and turned on the speaker patched to the radio receiver outside. It was was the sound men's voices singing the Party anthem ' _The hills of the world_ _are clothed_ _in Green_.' On every station, on every frequency, it played the same broadcast.

"They're out there. All of them, right now. Now they will have to attack every fort one at a time until a corridor is open large enough to get a division through without being shelled to pieces. That could take months, and the people of the Earth Kingdom are getting hungrier every day," Hei Bai said as the the walls started to echo with vibration. "Don't, worry. That's outgoing, not incoming. They can't hit any of these forts without taking fire from at least five others."

Responding to battle stations, I followed Hei Bai as he gathered up Buno and the remainder of the squad. We went to the armory where we saddled up in full battle rattle. And then… nothing.

We stood at our post, awaiting an attack that didn't come. The constant thud of outgoing shells could be both felt and heard. News trickled in from passing soldiers. Guesses at the number of troops or tanks knocked out. How many guns the fort still had in working order. Whether infantry had reached the inner-most defensive line. Somewhere, west of us, were four hundred thousand Earth Kingdom soldiers with the Avatar's blessing. I shuddered.

As we were being relieved for the evening, Major Anaaya, the commander of the garrison, ran to us shouting "Hey! Hey! This man's a lightning bender, right?"

"Me?" I said, looking to Hei Bai. He shrugged.

"Come with me right away, we need your help." She pleaded in her unexpectedly soft voice.

"Well, go on then," said Hei Bai

I followed her through the maze of hallways and people to the top of the fort. These hallways had become even more cramped since I had walked through them this morning - the garrison had already begun building barricades of concrete and sandbags in the very hallways themselves. Climbing up a ladder to the cupola atop the fort, I was greeted by a friendly face who pulled me up to my feet.

"It's good to see you, Hiro," smilled Amarao.

"You too, sir."

"Ah, cut it with the 'sir'ing, save it for the Major."

"Take a look through this periscope," the Major said. I looked through a viewfinder and in the twilight I could see plumes of dust and dirt shooting into the sky. These forts were spaced such that if two men stood atop them, they'd be able to see each others faces over the horizon.

The Major said, "Their tanks have halted for the moment. They're pounding our sister fort with just about every artillery battery the Earth Kingdom has. But this," She said, pointing at the machinery in the center of the cupola, "is a Fire Nation battleship railgun. We outrange anything the Earth Kingdom has, we just needed someone to operate it." I looked to Amarao.

The two of us prepared ourselves as the gunnery crew buzzed around us and machinery sprang to life. I stood to the left of the gun-cathode, with Amarao to my right. We both settled into a wide horse stance, and focused on our breathing.

"Gun loaded!" someone shouted. "We have a firing solution," shouted another.

The Major said to us, "The modulator will limit the amperage to the correct amount, so just give us as much juice as you can."

I closed my eyes and focused on the energy within my body. It was warm and radiated from belly like the core of the sun. As my breathing slowed I could feel my heart rate slow and I could feel the blood moving through my muscles and my skin.

The Major dramatically swept her long silky hair behind her and shouted,"Fire!"

Together, Amarao and I sprung from our horse stance, leaning into the machine as if we were punch with both arms. The electricity flowed through us, into the machine and around and around our bodies. My hairs all stood on end as I could feel the power redirecting from my hand, down to my shoulder and thu my core, back up to my other hand and into the machine. There was a tremendous sonic boom.

Our payload, a canister that would unfurl like a flower a kilometer from our target, showering the area with tungsten balls like BBs from a scattergun. A minute later, the voice came over the intercom, "They've stopped firing on us for now. Good guns, thirty nine!"

The gun crew began to cheer. They patted us on the shoulder and rubbed our hair as we climbed back down the ladder to the bowels of the fort. "You guys aren't so bad for foreigners," some said.

But the excitement ended quickly. The battle raged on outside. And inside. We were on the front lines of it, doing the best could. Passing munitions to the gunnery teams, even loading the cannons when their crew got tired. It was an endless task, with no signs of progress. By day, the universal artillery guns would fire howitzer shells on targets beyond the horizon. By night, they were trained at the sky. Instead of a cloud of ack-ack, the guns would form a 'steel curtain.' The payload would open up at ten kilometers. Inside was a steel cable five hundred meters long with a parachute at one end. Falling slowly to the ground, any planes attempting to fly over us would have their wings ripped off or the cable wrapped up in their propeller.

For nearly a week this went on. Shelling back and forth. I could never sleep well. I kept waking up in cold sweats. I'd break into them while awake, too. I could tell the difference between outgoing and incoming by the shaking of the walls and the flickering of the lights. Walls had begun to crack in some places under the stress of four hundred millimeter bombardment, but we held together. When the assault on our fort finally came, all my fear disappeared.

Our squad geared up and awaited direct orders of battle together. The assault on fort 17 had begun in earnest. But now our fort and fort 40 were being attacked with tanks, assault guns, and waves of infantry. Meanwhile forts 16 and 18 were under heavy barrage of artillery. "Why would they do this?" I asked. "The Earth Kingdom forces attacking us and fort forty are going to bet shelled by us and three other forts, each."

"Doesn't matter." Hei Bai said. "They're expendable. This is just to stop us from shelling the spearhead at fort seventeen."

Soon enough we were rushed up to one of the casemates on the side of the fort with a machine gun nest. The gunners had been firing at in fixed trajectories not unlike artillery, meant to blanket the area. Now they came so close and in such numbers the gunners now could aim right at them. We all scrammed, feeding cases of ammo to the gunners and changing out barrels when they became red hot. Making things difficult were the tank defenses. Rows of posts like tomb stones to physically stop tanks. Problems is, they make cover good from bullets too. Not from artillery, though.

Soon I could see them close enough to make out their forms, while only a kilometer away the assault guns with their 140mm cannons pummeled us. As I ran to fetch the next box of ammo, I was thrown over across the room. I looked up and could see the moon and stars where there were none before. "Is everyone OK?" I screamed. I couldn't hear any responses, I had been deafened an hour ago. No one seemed to have any major injuries.

I went to the edge of the now blasted cupola with my rifle to shoot at the encroachers, but was repelled by stinging white smoke. Must have been precise fire from one of those assault guns to cover their advance. Through the smoke was a series of screaming noises and infernal red glow as rockets at the base and top of the fort took flight. They carried no warhead but unspooled hundreds of meters of concertina razor wire behind them. How many soldiers did it trap? How manys soldiers did it land on and decapitate or entangle? I shuddered.

I could still hear the constant blasts of our mortars and artillery through the smoke. As it began to clear, A single soldier had nearly made his way to the sloping base of the fort. He paused for a moment and looked up before turning to flee. In that moment, I saw hundreds of bullets from many angles fly towards him and cut him down. Explosives tossed his body around, throwing it into the coil of razor wire and more explosions landing around him shook it some more for good measure.

What good was courage? Was he a bender? Neither could make a difference. No one could survive this. This place on earth had been transformed into an area as incompatible with human life as the bottom of the ocean. By Yue, not even the Avatar could survive here.

Under the cover of smoke was not just the waves of infantry, but the baby mecha tankettes. Little armored vehicles the size of satomobiles. They had spindly legs like a mecha tank, but had little tread bogies on the end instead of feet and would glide over the battlefield instead of walk. They're spindly legs navigated between the tank traps as they rolled through the mud. From a distance they looked and moved like water striders.

I moved through the bulkhead from our compartment of the casemate to the to the adjacent one. The mecha tankettes were shrapnel and bullet proof, but could never withstand a direct hit from even the lightest of artillery. The light field gun next door could make quick work of them. I saw immediately that the earlier explosion had mangled the telescopic sights, but the gun itself was intact. The occupants of this room were not so lucky.

Without gun sights, I had to make due. I opened the the breach of the gun and aimed it at my prey through the bore. As I reached back to find a shell, I could finally see Buno behind me, yelling into my face trying to get my attention. "Leave it!" he was shouting. "Leave it we have to go!"

He pulled me to my feet and I dusted myself off and ran after him. Our whole squad was running down through the interior of the fort. Hei Bai said, "They've finally done it. Earth bender sappers blew a hole clean through the front of fort seventeen. The adjacent forts are sending all available combat teams - we're going to hold off the enemy inside long enough for them to scuttle the fort."

Snaking through the bowels of the fort, the bottom most parts of the contained many large tunnels and passageways connecting each of these forts to one another. Some of these tunnels were large enough to drive three satomobiles side by side, which I know for sure as that is how we travelled through them. We passed an exodus of soldiers from the fort transporting the many wounded.

At the end of the tunnel we climbed up a pile of sand to the ladder that passed up a conduit with hatches at each end like one on naval ship. All manner of men and women ran around us and passed us as Hei Bai looked for whoever knew what was going on and had them point out directions. Following them, we came to a long hallway with a sandbagged fighting position. There they had a tripodded, belt fed, automatic grenade machine gun, loaded with 40mm scattershot rounds. At the controls sat a young Native soldier. His hands were trembling. His face had gone pale.

"Hey!" said Hei Bai. "Are you hurt?"

"N-no, sir" he responded. I looked to the end of the hallway, where it made a ninety degree bend. The whole wall was painted red, and at the bottom of that wall was a pile of goop and shreds of uniform, twisted guns and crumpled helmets. To the left of the soldier was a pile of brass, some of it still warm.

"The breach in the wall is right passed that corner, isn't it."

"Yes. I'm the only one they had to cover this hallway, but I think this is all of them for now," the Native said.

"We're here to relieve you."

"There's another passage around the corner that they can reach right next to the hole. That passage is guarded, but they'll need to be relieved too."

After taking a brief moment to weigh all his options, Hei Bai shouted, "nuts!"

Not wanting to split up our small squad, we'd have to take up defenses at the breach. Stepping over the remains of the dead, we rounded the corner and ran for cover in the hallway. The opening felt massive. We were at once hit with a wave of hot air from outside. The sound of the bombshells so close to us became deafening and we could feel the gusts of wind with every explosion.

We were all huddle up against various crates and boxes of supplies, with Chang at the front with a heavy machine gun and Thein Kyu huddling beside him to feed him his ammo. Hei Bai checked his watch for the dozenth time. The lights in the hallway had been turned off and if it weren't for the stars outside it would have looked like a black void opening up towards us

"Once the charges are set on our cannons, their Major should be the last of the garrison to clear, and then we'll follow him. Just another five and a half more minutes."

If they were putting charges on all of our fixed guns and evacuating from them, that meant those guns weren't protecting us from the enemy.

"Here they come!" Buno shouted as the first figures materialized from the haze to stept over the jagged concrete and twisted rebar.

We all began firing wildy and those of us who had them only stopped to throw grenades or to reload. As Thein Kyu did his best to feed the gun, Chang had given up the pretense of aiming and sprayed the weapon as one would water a flower bed with a garden hose. An unlucky soldier by the edge of the hole had tried throw grenades of his own and had been clipped in his elbow, dropping the bomb outside by his feet. And then the world seemed to become calm again.

"How much longer?" asked Koko.

At that moment Chang stood up to look back to Hei Bai for his answer.

Ka-pwing!

Chang collapsed backward to the floor. I think I screamed.

A moment later Chang began rolling around clutching his head and dented helmet. Then I saw the silhouette of the man with the flamethrower at the end of the hallway. My heart skipped a beat. I think I screamed again.

In the blink of an eye Koko punched forward with her airbending, the blast of wind soaking the man in his own burning kerosene. A moment later, I had summoned a bolt of lighting which arced its way to the tank on his back, rupturing it and coating the whole end of the breach in flame. Inside the fire, the man curled up like a spider.

As we all took a breath of terror and relief, Buno said, "I think it's time."

It was then that one of the mecha tankettes rolled up on it's spindly legs and stretched up, straightening its joints. Its carapace rose up to fill the hallway. Its insectoid turret turned its gaze toward us and opened up with it's proboscis-like machine gun.

"It's definitely time!" Hei Bai shouted as he jumped and scurried down the hallway like a startled cat.

All of us ran around the corner, slipping on the pile of blood and gore as the bullets licked at our heels. Running thru now empty halls, I reached the escape hatch first. I twist it open and jump in, falling nearly ten meters on the pile of sand. "Clear!" I shouted back up the shaft as I roll out of the way and wait for the others to repeat the process. After we all make it down, one of Native soldiers waiting on us bends the pile of sand up into the shaft and we close and lock the hatch at its bottom.

Returning to our fort, the combat has stopped yet I'm greeted with carnage. The wounded of our forts 39 and 17 spill out into the hallways. It is beginning to smell like a slaughterhouse. Those from fort 17 that do not have physical wounds still look more ill than I have ever seen a man before. The next several hours I am shaking with anxiety. Waiting. Not sure if it's over or just taking a little intermission.

Hei Bai approached me as I sat with the wounded, slumped up against the hallway. "I have another mission for you," he said. "Another one only a lightning bender can do."

I followed him through the hallway till we reached a flight of stairs winding downward. It was guarded by soldiers with heavy machine guns, barricaded and sandbagged, barrels pointing down the stairs.

Hei Bai said, "It didn't take them too long to remove all that sand and get the hatch unlocked. Sooner than I thought it would, at any rate. They haven't made progress. Yet. There's many service tunnels connecting the forts. We've flooded what we can, but due to limited water could only flood it waist high and froze it solid every time they've tried to move troops through. It's been successful, up until now."

"So what do you need me for?"

Their engineers are clever. This latest tunnel they've tried to get through? We flooded it, and then they poured in so much salt we can't get it to freeze."

"I understand. Tell them to turn off the lights in the tunnel."

I walked down stairs into absolute darkness. I could hear voices whispering to each other and the movement of water. My footsteps echoed off the walls.

The soldier closest to me opened fire. His bullets ricocheted off the stairs and in the strobe of his muzzle flashes i could see of sea of EKA faces ready to spring from their hole.

"Did we get him?" a voice whispered

"Shut up!" whispered another.

Taking another step down, I dipped my toes into the water...


	17. Chapter 16

Even under all this concrete, I could smell the stench. Their were so many bodies out there, in the summer heat, you could smell it for miles. After so many days, even I would fight the urge to vomit. Overcome by temptation and finally accustomed to the sounds of explosions, scavengers had come to the battlefield. The flocks of them were the only form of shade in the sky. They ignored the bullets snapping past them as they ate, often being struck themselves and adding to the pile. The offensive could not be described as grinding to a halt. It was being fought every day. Perhaps it was better described as a constant broil.

There were really two battles going on simultaneously. On one front, was the defense of the fortresses by their tiny garrisons. The universal howitzers fired artillery by day, ack-ack by night, and high velocity anti tank whenever it was needed. The machine guns raked the infantry and the fieldguns knocked out the baby assault mecha tanks. The mecha tankettes darted around the battlefield looking like water striders. The proboscis like heavy machine gun and periscopes and antenna (literal, not metaphor) enforced the bug imagery of our enemy. They even tended to curl up their legs when they died.

The other front was our front. What made these forts successful was that they incorporated an active rather than static defense. Sieging or directly assaulting a fort is not difficult from a strategic point of view - though the men having to do it might have something to say about that! So what allowed us to defend these forts was to always prevent the enemy from applying the direct pressure needed to crack them. Not only did the sister forts shell the attacks, but we also used them as staging points to launch raids and counter attacks at all times. Despite attacking us at a single point, each brigade of the Earth Kingdom Army found itself attacked and besieged from all angles.

As a special operations lance, it fell to us to conduct such missions. Now, the members of our squad sat in one of the hallways geared up and anxiously awaiting the signal to begin our next raid. Beside me, Koko covered her scalp in grease and was shaving off what little hair she had with her knife. Major Anaaya and her long hair strode past us down the hallway to wherever she was needed, only looking to us to give an affirmative nod that our operation would be underway.

Following Anaaya were a pair of young soldiers, both of Water Tribe complexion. They were part of a squad brought up from the Capitol to replace the casualties we had taken during the loss of fort 17. Capitol guard. Reservists. They had never fought the insurgency and had yet to fight Earth Kingdom on our western front.

The two men stopped in front of Chang and one of them said, "Hey, native, you there." Chang looked up at them.

"We caught you staring at the Major. You were staring at the Major, weren't you?'

"No, I only-"

"Don't lie!" the other reservist bellowed, towering over him. "Whaddya think your doing, huh? Think you get to disrespect one of our women, an officer, like that, you pervert?

"You don't understand," Thein Kyu interjected. "You must be mistaken, This man is a good man."

"Shut up! You think I care what you have to say? You look like a bloody terr. You're not one of those criminals are you?"

Crack!

Buno's fist sent the first reservist reeling. The second tried to run, but Buno was larger and faster, and he found himself in chokehold. His feet were slipping on the ground, struggling to balance on the tips of his toes.

"You little reservist puke!" Buno spat at him. "You don't get to ever speak to my men like that. You clearly don't know who any of us are, but while you were cowering in Capital City, each of us has killed more men than children you've swallowed. I know what you reservists are like and I'm willing to bet I'll find your units mysteriously lost your morphine rations more than once. I can have you shot for that. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" the man pleaded.

"Don't you ever call me 'sir,' and don't let me ever catch you even making eye contact with my men ever again."

Buno squeezed. A few seconds later the man went limp and Buno dropped him like a sack of sea prunes. This might have been the only I had ever heard Buno speak profanely. The whole squad had stood up and left before the man regained consciousness.

Our squad traveled down into the depths of the fort, down through one of the underground passageways. This one split off the main tunnels and was only wide enough for a single man to walk through. A ten kilometer hike to a secret exit. Chang had begun to sweat. He had the shakes.

Chang had taken Peng's death better than I thought he would have. It was after he had been shot in his helmet that he began to have the changes. Every time we could go on a raid since then, he'd get the sweats and the shakes. Chang was a ruminator. "Peng's bought the farm," he'd say after raids.. "I could have been next. I was shot in the head, just like him. What if the bullet pierced my helmet? What if that shell had landed in our pillbox instead of the one only a meter to the right? What if -"

"But it didn't, Chang!" I shouted at him. "But it didn't! You're still here." Why did he have to think about that? Why couldn't he just be numb, like the rest of us…

That same battle Chang was shot, Hei Bai had sent me into a tunnel exactly like this one by myself to kill fifty three sappers. When I returned I asked Hei Bai why he had sent me alone and he said, "The Earth Kingdom has come to kill waterbenders. So I gave them you instead." I thought nothing of it since. But now, seeing Chang shaking in a safe tunnel surrounded by friendlies made me very uneasy. It's alright if he was scared, you just don't want to show it!

When we reached the end of the tunnel we waited for a moment. Hei Bai extended a periscope up and began to survey the area. After giving an all-clear, we slinked up a trap door and into the dirt. In the cover of night, we crawled on our bellies through the dirt, cradling our rifles between our elbows. Behind us, we could see the ruins of fort 17 in the distance. It was occupied by the Earth Kingdom now, but that was alright. It had become a nice piece of shelter to bog down their advance.

We were behind enemy lines, deep in the midst of where the Earth Kingdom soldiers were entrenched. Our target was a communications dugout. The goal was to cut comms or pass along false orders, so the difficulty was how to attack them before they could send for help. "That's it," Hei Bai said. "We'll take that trench."

We crawled to the lip of the trench, seeing it was unmanned. It made a few twists and turns but gave us a path into the larger dugout. "Wish we had Peng here right now," Koko whispered.

"We'll have earthbender tryouts soon enough." Hei Bai whispered back.

One by one we slithered into the trench. There were no duckboards and the ground was dry and solid, masking our approach. The walls of the trench were bare and smooth with the clean cut that one would expect from an earthbender. We could hear the handful of soldiers in the dugout around the corner, less than five meters from us. With Hei Bai at the front, we inched our way to the corner in single file.

Hei Bai peered around the corner and gave us some hand signals detailing what he saw and what we would do next. One guard. Hei Bai lowered his suppressed burpgun for a knife and after a deep inhale and exhale he rounded the corner.

Buno and I rounded the corner after him with our guns at the ready. Hei Bai had already grabbed the man. Muffling any sound he could make had grappled him to the ground with the knife in heart.

Just then another soldier came round the corner from the dugout. No clear shot. He stood frozen for an instant at the sight of us and so much blood on the ground. Then he turned and sprinted as fast as he could for the dugout. Buno and I took off after him, sprinting in a mad dash to get him before he could shout for help. Buno raced ahead, pulling a the pin from one of his grenades.

As we rounded the corner following the trench to the dugout, it was too late. Another EKA soldier in the dugout had turned to face us, bearing no weapons, and settling into a powerful stance.

"Buno!" I screamed. "No!"

Eyes wide, I fell backwards as I tried to halt and my feet skidded out from under me.

Thwump!

Just like that, Buno was gone.

"Out! Out! Out!" Hei Bai screamed.

The five of us rolled out of the trench as fast as we could. What unfolded next was a cacophony of gunshots form both us and the Earth Kingdom soldiers at point blank range. The whole world seems to shrink down as it takes every fiber of concentration to control your body during the automatic fire. the muzzle flashes pointed at you are blinding and deafening. The ineffable terror I felt in these few seconds has been seared into my brain, but I cannot remember what actually happened.

The soonest I can recall is that at some point grenades had been thrown over the trench at us. In the next moment I am in the dugout with Hei Bai, Chang, and Koko.

"Where is everyone? Is everyone OK?" one of us aks. I cannot remember if it was me.

"Buno! Buno!" Chang wails.

Chang pulls off his helmet and runs to the caved-in the trench. On his knees with both hand gripping his helmet he begins franticly scooping and scraping at the dirt. "Buno!" he wails again. "Buno! Come on! Please, Buno!"

"Stop it!" I yell, pulling him away. "He's gone, Chang. Buno's gone."

"Where's Thein Kyu?" Koko asks. Then we hear the groaning.

As we climb over the top, Thein Kyu is a scant ten meters from the hole. He's laying on his back in a pool of blood, clutching his belly. As we run to him, I can now see the blood pulsing from right thigh. Hei Bai swoops over to him. "Hold on! Hold on, Thein Kyu! Keep holding pressure." Hei Bai takes his tourniquet and ties it above the bleeding on Thein Kyu's leg until it stops before ripping apart Kyu's shirt and stuffing his belly with gauss.

"Stop it. What are you doing?" Thein Kyu mutters.

"I'm trying help you. I'm trying to save you!" Hei Bai pleads as Thein Kyu grips his hand.

"It's OK." Thein Kyu says. "We're far from home. I won't make it anyway." Even in the darkness, I could see that Thein Kyu had started to grow pale.

"Buno's gone, Thein Kyu," Hei Bai said. "I can't lose you too. I can't let you die like this."

"Hei Bai… I'm a murderer. A terr and a troublemaker. I've killed innocent women and children. I deserve neither pity or mercy. The sentence for what I've done was always death; you've known this." Thein Kyu lowered his hand to his thigh and popped the windlass on his tourniquet. "It's been an honor to serve you. I only hope I've done as much as I could"

Thein Kyu lost consciousness almost immediately, but Hei Bai held his hand until he had stopped breathing.

Hei Bai fell backwards then, wiping back his hair with his hand and then streaking blood down his cheek. With tears in his eyes he stood up and bellowed, "come on! We have a mission to complete!"

We set about looking for intel, but could find nothing. The only thing of note was a stack of firefighter's respirators and what looked like strange raincoats. We patched into our fort's frequency using their secure radio communications. No response. We hailed them again after a minute. Nothing.

There had been no response to our raid from the EKA either and no chatter from the communications stations to suggest that they were on to us. We could see all manner of lights in the distance, however. Peering through a pair of binoculars we could see a whole convoy of trucks and tanks moving forward toward the forts without a single trooper escorting them. "What's going on? They should be shelled to pieces, moving like that," I said. "It doesn't matter now," said Hei Bai "We have to get back to base."

The hike back was long, and done in silence.

In fact, as my hearing returned to me I realized that it was silent. The sound of incoming or outgoing artillery had ceased.

As I began to climb down the trap door and suddenly I was gripped in an intense sensation of fear. I felt drool pooling in my mouth and at once felt as if I would vomit. "What's the hold up?" Koko whispered to me. Before I could answer, Hei Bai shouted "Get out!" and began pushing me back up the ladder, stumbling like a drunkard. I grabbed the ladder but my hands had gone numb and my fingers tingled electrically at the touch. I struggled to move my arms. Hei Bai pushed me up from beneath as I vomited on myself, and then Chang and Koko reached down and pulled Hei Bai up next.

"Closhe da traff-door" Hei Bai slurred as him and I lay on our backs, gasping for air.

"What happened?" Koko asked

"I don't know." Hei Bai said, opening his canteen and and bending a shower of water over himself. "Get him, too," he said, pointing at me.

"Hei Bai, sir, tell me what happened!" pleaded Chang.

"I don't know. I only have an idea, but I'm going to find out." Hei Bai said before rolling over to vomit for the third time. "We need to go back to that dugout."

I started to feel a little better as Chang and Koko helped me to my feet and poured water over me. And then my guts began to twist inside out. "We can't, sir. I don't think I can."

"I wasn't asking you, Hiro. What else could you do now, if not the mission? We must find out the truth!"

Stumbling beside Koko, I felt too sick to say anything else. Hei Bai was moving as fast as he could with arm around Chang's neck. The empty void of terror I felt from the last gunfight only seemed to open up within me with each passing step. The night had become so quiet now that even the cicadas had stopped chirping. No guns, no animals, no wind, only the sound of our own steps. But in the distance, we could see the never ending Earth Kingdom convoy

I tried not to look at Thein Kyu's body when we got to the dugout. It was unchanged on our return. We were ordered to leave it alone for the second time as Hei Bai had us collect the respirators and those rubber raincoat-like suits. Then, we walked back in silence again. Any attempts to ask about what was even happening now was met with a biting "Shut up." from Hei Bai.

One by one we helped each other slip into the body-condoms. Whatever these were, Hei Bai seemed familiar with them to instruct us and check us over. Each was as sticky and claustrophobic in the heat. Putting on the mask was a portal to an alien world. It felt suffocating as it cleaned the air. Every breath was loud and exhausting. Hei Bai disappeared into the hole first. Only the pressure of Chang behind me let me stumble down after him. The straight path we had to travel was exhausting. I fumbled around with each breath drowning out anything outside and sweat began pooling around my ankles. Then Hei Bai stopped.

"We'll need to move them out of the way," Hei Bai commanded as I struggled to look around him and see what was ahead of us.

Filling the tunnel, to the ceiling, were over a half dozen corpses. Men and women, of both the natives and the Water Tribe. Their eyes were glazed over. Their mouths were covered in foam. Their limbs were twisted together in knots as they had tried to all squeeze through this passage at the time.

"Oh, Raava"

We started at the top. Pulling the first body off with anything we could grab. Limbs, shirt collar, belt loops. After pulling her from the from the top where she slid down onto the concrete, we passed her body down the tunnel between our legs. We did this for the next body, then the next. And until we could begin to step over the blockage.

We emerged from the tunnel and into the fort in horror. All around were the bodies of people laying twisted on the ground. I slipped on vomit coating the floor and only Koko caught me before I cracked my skull on the floor. I begged, I pleaded, "Hei Bai, what is the meaning of this!" but he moved with a singular purpose through the fort, scouring every dim surface with his flashlight. Everywhere was death.

Some of them died at their posts. One was still sitting at the controls over his field gun. His whole body rigid. His face paralyzed in an expression of fear. Most did not die like this. Most had all scurried and piled into a single corner of a room, trying to find an escape. Their faces were covered in foamy spittle and emesis.

It was in one of these piles I found them, both Amarao and Major Anaaya. Their eyes wide. Their mouths agape. The humanity and color had been sucked out of them. Snuffed out. Only alien flesh was left.

Hei Bai ignored my questions, still driven by task and purpose. That was OK. I already knew the answers to those questions, I didn't want to believe them. But there were different questions I wanted to know the answers to, and knew Hei Bai would never answer them. I grabbed Koko by the hand and pulled her away from Hei Bai with me.

I put my finger to my respirator to tell her to stay quiet. We stepped over the dead as we made our way down the hallways. Straight to Hei Bai's private quarters. I would find out the truth.

"This is what you wanted to know, isn't it?" I shouted through my respirator to ask her. She began to take off her mask. "Stop! What are you doing!."

She set it face down on the record player "I can bend the clean air from my suit around my head. But we'll have maybe two minutes. Take yours off, too."

I started to and then paused with trembling hands. Then i closed my my eyes and thrust the mask away from my face, gritting my teeth. At once, I felt a curtain of air wrap around my face. "Slow down you're breathing!" she commanded. "You'll burn though the air."

I tried my best but the two of us were in a rush. We scrambled through the the room, tearing it apart for binders and documents. Koko was looking for for anything she could read in time, but I knew exactly what documents I was looking for. And to my disgust, I found it. A single, thick manila folder, boringly labelled 'Secret'

Time's up.

Koko and I put our masks back on. On our way out I stopped and poured fire from hands into the room. I sprayed fire at every book, every folder, every file I could. I wanted to burn all of it. If the sprinklers had let me I'd have burned this whole place to ground, and all the bodies in it.

Koko and I left the fort together and hiked out into the field. The once flat plain had turned into a twisted sea of craters, with unmoving cresting waves of dirt. We climbed in and out of them heading east to our rally point. We could see Hei Bai and Chang were waiting for us there, far enough from the fort that we could cover over it with our thumb held at arm's length like he said. Off in the distance, still, we could see the lights of the uninterrupted Earth Kingdom Army procession.

"Koko! Hiro!" exclaimed Chang as we approached, "you're OK! We thought something had happened…"

"Yeah," I said. "We're OK."

"What happened?" Koko asked.

"It's not just fort 39. Everything on the defensive line for over twenty kilometers north or south of here has gone silent," Hei Bai said. "I don't know exactly how. I don't know the method. I don't know how they developed it. But I've seen this before. They've taken the tragedy at Chun Go Ku factory and turned it into a weapon."

"I know what they used," said Chang the farmer. "It's pesticides and fertilizer poisoning. Insecticide! They've exterminated us like vermin!"

"How did intelligence not know about this? I thought you said Jian intelligence was thorough," Said Koko

Hei Bai answered, "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I don't know."

"Stop lying to me!" She screamed. "You ought to know if you were ever any good at your job! How long were you going to keep lying to us?"

Chang asked, "what are you talking about?"

"This man isn't a soldier, or an officer. He wasn't ever even in the military! He's a spook, Chang. We've been running around following orders from a civilian this whole time and now Peng and Buno and Thein Kyu are dead!"

"Is this true, Hei Bai?" asked Chang.

Hei Bai bit his lower lip.

"I've never lied. In Jia I am a captain, what I did in the Earth Kingdom is none of your concern."

"I don't care what phony title that Du Lin slaps on you. You're a phony! Hiro and I saw everything in his office."

"What Koko says is true," I said.

Hei Bai retorted, " Why don't you tell everyone who you really are? I've kept your secrets, Hou Yi. I still keep your secrets…"

"We know all about yours." Koko said. "Why don't you tell Chang about operation boiling rock?"

"Whatever you think you know, you know nothing close to the truth."

"All this talk of the rain goddess and the omens of drought, that was all a psychological operation. It was no coincidence that it rained on the day the Du Lin allowed the natives to vote. You were responsible for that too, weren't you?"

"There's no way what they're saying could be true…" said Chang in disbelief. "Is it?"

"...it is," Said Hei Bai, staring off into space. "It was all waterbending and silver iodide."

"How could you!"

"I am trying to win a war! I am trying to save my people! You said it yourself, Hiro. Never trust a spook. Never trust intelligence. What do they know? Like I haven't put my head in the filth more than anyone else here!"

"You have made a mockery of my people. You've defamed what we hold dear. Thein Kyu and Buno were the ones who stood up for me and now they're dead." said Chang, who was on the point of tears.

"Well," said Koko. "we definitely can't trust you now."

Hei Bai jumped to his feet and said. "You really think you have a right to be so indignant for not being told the whole truth? Thein Kyu knew everything you know from the start. And let me tell you there is so much going on that you don't know you wouldn't believe me if I told you right now! So go ahead. Hate me. Make Peng and Thein Kyu and Buno's deaths be for nothing. But I have a mission and I will see it through to the end with or without you."

"Hei Bai!" I snapped. "It's over. The defenses have fallen. Hundreds are dead. There are only four of us now!"

"No! No, it's not over. We have to try" Hei Bai said. "We have to defend Capital City. I'll do it myself if I have to… I am sorry. I am so sorry. But right now I have to do what's demanded of me… Koko… Hiro… Chang…"

"I am sorry, sir. But I can't… it's over. All that matters now is my family."

Hei Bai's lip trembled, but he held his body rigid as a board. Taking a deep breath he made an about face, and then began marching off alone to motor pool. I could just make out in the distance the sound of and sight of a satomobile driving off into the night, heading due East for the Capital.


	18. Chapter 17 Part 1

The next several hours were spent waiting for dawn, sitting around the edge of one of the craters. Chang's flask of baijiu had made an appearance, and it was eagerly passed in rotation between the three of us. Each of mumbling our thoughts on the present situation after our sip. "Yep," was all I said after mine.

I passed it on to Koko. She tilted the flask upside down to take a small sip, then handed it back to Chang. "Uh huh," she mumbled. Chang tried to sip any last drop, and then held the flask upside down and gave it a quick shake to prove that it had been emptied.

"Are we still enforcing 'if you take the last of it, you get bruises'" he said, glaring at Koko.

"Who cares anymore," Koko said.

"Well," I asked, "what are else are we supposed to do now?"

"That's a good question," Koko said.

"Find a way out of here, for starters," Chang said. "My family's evacuated to Shenwa mountain. I need to get to them."

"You'll have to head north for that, and you'll have to cut across the path of EKA."

"Maybe we can surrender to them?" Koko asked, spitting her random thoughts into the dirt

"And spend our next twenty years in a labor camp?" I answered. "Well a Nomad and firebender could never make it through. But Chang could still slip through as a civilian! he is a native, after all."

"No, Hiro. It won't work," Chang responded. "The Party has its eyes on my son. They'll find out who I am after they detain me and they'll come after all of us as collaborators. I have to get to them first so we can go into hiding."

"So what'll we do then?" asked Koko. "I suppose I could find a glider and just try to fly away back to the Sovereignty?"

"I have a few underworld contacts back in the Fire Nation still. The Shimada brothers. I could get us all forged papers and a place to lay low for a while."

"It won't work either, Hiro. We have to get out of here first." Koko answered.

"And go where? Back to Capital City?" Asked Chang.

"Well, we could try to make it there and escape by sea, if they haven't blockaded the inlet of the strait." Damn! That would be no way out either. It could take a whole battlefleet to keep the fjord open and only one frigate, sub, or mine laying bomber to close it.

"Or we could go southwest to one of the villages there, and wait this thing out till it's safe to get out of here again?"

"Hiro, you fought in Gao Ling and Si Wong and other places for the Earth Kingdom Army," Chang said. "What happens in those places after the Earth Kingdom and the Party takes over?"

I couldn't bear to give him an answer.

After a minute of silence Koko asked, "so what do we do? Wait here till they spot us air, or just banzai charge into their tanks?"

"Maybe fighting isn't such a bad option," I said.

"I don't want to go down with the sinking ship."

"That's not what I mean. Maybe we ought to follow Hei Bai back the capital, see how things shake out."

"Don't tell me you're agreeing him, are you?" Koko asked.

"No," I said, "But I mean, we've made it this far. What else is there to do? At least this feels like we have any sense of control over it."

"Hiro's right," said Chang. "But it's still crazy."

"Yeah…" I admitted.

"And it's still suicide," said Koko. "At least it's better than the firing squad, even if you die the same way. It's still too crazy."

"Yeah," we sighed together. We all sat around that circle thinking about our lack of options in silence. After about a minute, I thought about something Buno had once told, me. Something about how to lead, and how to follow. I stood up, and began to march off for the motor pool...

Koko and Chang had caught up to me by the time that the sun was starting to rise. Not much left intact. We eventually found a running vehicle - an open top all terrain satomobile - and had to siphon gas from the others. And then the wheel fell off. The three of us spent an hour working to arc weld the axle back together with my fingers. This was made more difficult as I had to keep a hand over my face so as not to blind myself. The shifting forks were damaged, too, forcing me to redline the engine so that I could drop the clutch on fifth gear. Fifth and neutral were the only positions it would go to. The lack of working synchros made this an all around unpleasant experience. We chugged out from the motor pool with shattered or crooked mirrors and doors that would not shut. Very soon I found myself turning the heater to max settings to keep the engine from overheating.

We raced along as fast as we could, picking up speed with the rising sun. Out of sight, traveling parallel to us, was the EKA. Large armies were cumbersome and unwieldy. Our only hope was that to maintain security and supply lines they'd be traveling much slower than full speed. At least slower than we were going at any rate.

As the sun began to scorch us, I turned on the radio. I had hoped to hear messages from the Jian government or military. I had also hoped for something, anything, to pass the agonizingly tense journey back to the capital. Or, any sign of life from Jian defensive forces. Instead, there was nothing but EKA propaganda being blasted over the airways.

"Yellow man! Why do you fight for your oppressor? Why do you fight for the Water Tribe? Yellow man! Can you not see how the Water Tribe is racist against your people? Can you not see how the Water Tribe has mistreated you? Come! Lay down your arms, brothers. You may have been separated from us, but you are part of the Earth Kingdom. In the Earth Kingdom's People's Democratic Republic there is no racism! You will all be treated as equals. Oppressors will pay for their crimes: the conviction rate in the Earth Kingdom is ninety nine percent. Justice and peace, with Earth Kingdom characteristics. Yellow man! come and see -"

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

And then a series of expletives

"What was that for, Chang? You can't just shoot the shoot the radio!"

"I'm sorry, Koko. OK? I'm sorry! I told Hiro at least four times to turn that filth off."

"No you didn't." I said.

"Yes, I did!"

"What?"

"Yeah," said Koko, "he did. You weren't paying attention."

"Not true!"

And that's when I swerved at the last second to avoid the cat.

It didn't work. I felt the thump as it went under the tires and cursed as I saw it laying on the ground in the rearview mirror. It wasn't moving. I can only hope it was an instant death.

Rando wasn't so lucky. The day he died was a day like any other. I was only eighteen and had come back to my apartment after a day at work. I made myself dinner, and some for Rando too. Shrimp, of course, was his favorite dish. He tore into it with great enthusiasm as usual. Afterwards he nuzzled up to me, purring, happy and content.

And then Rando began to scream. I had never heard a sound like it before. I tried to see what was wrong or console him. He immediately bit me and clawed at me before hissing and running thru the room as if he were set afire. Then he began rolling around on the floor writhing in pain, clawing at himself, screamed some more before he died, violently rejecting all my attempts to hold him.

It was an aneurysm, the veterinarians said. Somewhere in his brain an artery had burst. Somehow, Rando had known that he was in mortal danger, and responded the only way he could. Fight or flight. So he spent his last minutes trying to fight or flee from an unseen enemy. He died while feeling both incredible pain and hopeless fear. I had tried so hard to love that cat and give him a good life. To give him something that could possibly, just maybe, make up for all the terrible years he had spent living as a stray. All of that was undone in only a minute.

On we drove. Our greatest fear was air interdiction. All it would take would be a single greedy attack aircraft to spot our little satomobile and the dust it was kicking up. That would be the end of it right there! But none came. Instead, we looked up and saw the contrails of planes at high altitude racing westward toward the Earth Kingdom convoy. Jia's last squadron. We saw the contrails of Earth Kingdom fighters turn to meet them, and knew there was nothing the Jian's could do.

It was noon by now and the sun was well out of faces, yet I found myself blinded by glare in the distance. As we approached it, I realized what it was. The solar fields, or what was left of them. The start of this war, all the suffering and dying over this. Now, driving thru it, I could see that it had been smashed to pieces by bombing. The entire ground to the left and right of the road was covered in broken pipes and parabolic shards of mirrors, reflecting light in every direction. What a waste.

Squinting past the light and shapes reflected all around us, I could make out another twinkle of light a few hundred yards distant. I felt the thuds of the bullets raking our vehicle a few moments later.

I swerved as I felt the tire beneath me shred to pieces. I tried to maintain control of the vehicle as I braked and stalled almost immediately, losing power steering. Beside me, I could hear Chang yelp, "I've been hit!" The vehicle crawled to a halt in the field of glass. Hearing no more bullets I stuck both my hands outside the vehicle and waved them back and forth. We all did, and I could see now that Chang had been shot clean thru his right forearm. The three of us exited the vehicle with our hands above our heads. We walked down the road towards the source of the gunfire. The sound of the blasts was unmistakably from Jian small arms.

A pair of riflemen emerged from the sand and ran up to us. "We're friendly, you idiot," said Koko.

"I'm sorry! We didn't know," One of them said. "Didn't you hear our instructions on the radio?"

The three of us were huddled over to the small encampment in an abandoned hamlet and treated. Chang was stuck clean through his right forearm, which was wrapped in gauze and carried in sling. He had a few wounds from blown out debris on his legs as well, but nothing major. Still, they insisted on taking him back to Capital City via ambulance. Koko and I followed in a truck with the other native and Water Tribe soldiers who were eager to retreat from the checkpoint.

We found out soon that we were some of the only people that had escaped from the Wolf's Teeth defensive line. Shirshu cavalry tanks had exploited the breach in defense and had hooked both north and south. They caused havoc and encircled reinforcements in the forts that were not killed by the Earth Kingdom's new weapon of mass-death. Many of the garrisons had already surrendered. Others hadn't yet, but were effectively removed from the fight. Hei Bai, along with some others had passed through this checkpoint not long ago. Anyone who could was fleeing to the Capital ahead of the coming Earth Kingdom Army.

When we made it to the city, you could smell the fear. Every street was devoid of normal life. Every building boarded up and stacked with sandbags. Everything felt still and quiet despite the noise of trucks and marching soldiers or clank of lumbering mecha. Chang was dropped off at the 'walking wounded' triage point - a tent infirmary bustling with nurses and the less wounded casualties. "Wait here with Chang," I told Koko. "I need to find Hei Bai."

After about thirty minutes of searching I was pointed to the direction of a nearby hotel on the corner of one of the city blocks. The entire building had been repurposed with garrisoned troops and not a single civvie in sight. While the foyer was quite busy, I was able to brush my thru to the elevator and took it up to the seventh floor. On the upper floors it was quite abandoned, though carts full of supplies and construction materials littered the hallway. I walked down the hall until I found the room and knocked on the door.

"Come in, Hou Yi," Hei Bai said.

I opened the door, hesitantly. I took a deep breath and then stepped across the threshold, closing the door behind me. Hei Bai was waiting for me.

"Hei Bai," I choked, "We have all changed our minds. Koko, Chang, and I have decided to follow you, though Chang is wounded. I am sorry, Hei Bai. I'm so sorry…"

"Why do you apologize?" Hei Bai asked me. "If I had only carried out my duties, then you could never have transgressed. Instead, I had made myself into a beast, so it is natural that you would try to wound me. You acted reasonably, so what crime have you committed, Hou Yi?"

"Please, Hei Bai," I pleaded. "Please don't call me that."

Hei Bai let out a long, thready, and exasperated sigh as he averted his eyes from and shook his head from side to side to side.

The water hit me like a freight train.

Every faucet, every pipe, every tap in the room burst forth in a tumult bowling me over, blinding me, knocking the the wind from me. I tried to gasp but choked on water. It threw me to the ground and then rolled me over, back up into the air and onto my feet before flash freezing around me. My face exposed, I sputtered as i tried to gasp from the cold and cough water out at the same time.

Hei Bai bellowed, "The Chairman of the party has invited you to Lake Laogai!"

"P-p-please, Hei Bai," I tried to gasp and cough out water at the same time, "I'm s-sorry! It hurts! You're going to kill me!"

"Ah! Good!" Hei Bai said. "You need to hurt. So I can sear this lesson into your mind. So that you will never forget what I'm going to teach you. So that you can stop pretending to be numb or hide behind the memory of some stupid cat and that you're not part of this or that you're not complicit. You are not innocent. None of us are innocent. But do you know what people say when I show them the truth? It's not 'how awful that such a thing takes place.' It's not 'how good, for I support.' They say, 'oh, why would you tell me such a thing? It's not my business. I don't mind it, I just don't want to know about it.' But I will show you the truth, and the truth will make you fear."

"Hei Bai, please! You're not making sense. What are you talking about?"

"No, my little Hou Yi. That is not my name. For most of my life I was a dog of the Party. Not just any intelligence officer, but a spook of the Laogai system. My real name is HeBo. Like you, I was born with another name. That name was Feng Yi. Like how you've had other names. Like the Oni of Si Wong."

"That's not who I am!"

Hou Yi, who killed fifty men in an instant. Hou Yi, who stopped a fleet of nine Sovereignty airships. Hou Yi, that has slain countless by himself in the Si Wong desert. That you are the Oni of Si Wong would only surprise a fool. Do you really think it was all just some sort of coincidence that I know who you are and invited you to this land for our little band of mischief makers? No, Hou Yi. I have known you for nearly a decade. I made the Oni of Si Wong. Your massacre in that forsaken desert was just the propaganda piece that the Earth Kingdom Army needed at the time. So I made your tragedy into a legend."

"Those rebels that died that day… they weren't burned. The legend says no one knows what kind of bender it was. I'm not that kind of person, Hei Bai, I'm not a monster!"

Hei Bai placed his palm upon the surface of the ice, and then pressed it through, giving way for him as if it were flowing water. He placed his hand over my breast and said, "So you still have a heart. It's trembling."

He then reached through for my right hand, freeing from the ice and pulling it towards him. He placed it upon his breast in turn, "Do you feel my heart? It only takes a fraction of an amp to kill a man. You could kill me right now if you wanted. You wouldn't leave a single sign or evidence of cause on my body. Like the dead in Si Wong"

"I can't."

"I am growing desperate, Hou Yi. I will do anything to my people and culture from the Party and that is why I put my faith in you. Those meetings with Du Lin? Do you really think she cared about your opinion? She wanted to know if you could be trusted to betray the Party.

The Party demands that you love it with the unconditional love of your father. But you could not love your father. The Party demands perfect harmony, but you are the consummation of two peoples and could never really belong. That is how I knew I could turn you."

"Shut up! You don't know that!""

"It started when you were four. Your mother was eight months pregnant. You were going to have a sister, before the Party Birth Control Officer decided she would need an abortion after all."

"I told you to shut up!"

"But you committed the greatest taboo in the Earth Kingdom, the only tradition the Party has not yet eradicated. You abandoned your parents."

"She begged me to! She wanted me to stay away from him!"

"When you came into my quarters in the fort and you saw that manuscript, you couldn't read it, could you? That's because it's in traditional script. The Party banned has banned that and now only teaches simplified writing so that you may never read traditional literature. What you saw me performing was traditional bending. Bending like Avatar Aang and all the other Avatars and masters before him did."

"But that was like dancing? Why would they ban something like that? It's harmless, of no use to anything."

Hei Bai's mouth went agape and his shoulders drooped. I was some dumb lost child. "You see, Hou Yi. You punch and you kick and do your silly little judo chops and you call it bending. But when presented with Heaven itself manifesting inside you, you dismiss it and ask 'how is it of use to me? How do I hurt people with it?' Do you know who taught me how to bend? It was a guru. Like the sacred guru Pathik who enlightened Avatar Aang. He too was a Remnant and practitioner of the Dhamma Chakra. He was arrested for practicing it. I was to be his torturer. But he taught me.. He was no member of the Water Tribe, but he taught me all I know about how to truly bend. You see, Nonbenders are the best benders because they bend all four elements equally."

I stared deep into his eyes in bewilderment, thinking he must have been joking. He was dead serious.

"Please Hei Bai, I am freezing! I can't breath! Stop this…"

He grabbed my arm by the wrist and the ice shattered. I began to collapse but before I could fall to the ground, he had applied pressure to the top of my hand as he held it aloft. Sharp, stabbing pain. It raced down my arm like electricity with every beat of my heart. I flailed and begged but he would not release it.

"I am not getting through to you. I am not only a waterbender. I can bend Chi. I can bend blood. This is what all that silly little dancing can do. Now ask yourself. Is the world right today? Is the world in balance? Is this future that Avatar Aang and Avatar Korra had for the world? Perhaps you haven't put all the pieces together yet. You know that the Party was behind the rebels that started this war. You know that this was all about taking control of the farms back into the hands of the Party. And yet the Air Sovereignty takes credit? Why? This was all a setup. You must know that the Party and Sovereignty conspired together!"

"But Why, Hei Bai? Why would they do such a thing?"

"So that they Earth Kingdom may save the world with the Avatar's blessing. The Sovereignty, they get to destroy their greatest potential threat - an army not under control of the Party and next to their borders. For the Earth Kingdom, the Party must make sure there is never starvation again, or else risk a second revolution. You see, the Sovereignty has been corrupted by the Party quite some time ago."

"But how? How can such a thing be true? What are the Remnants? How can the Avatar not put a stop to this?"

Because the Party is nowhere. The Party is everywhere. The Party is pernicious as it is vile. The government of the Earth Kingdom's People's Democratic Republic? Well, that's not actually the Party. It's the government. It only so happens that the Party is the only party in the government that can hold office. You all vote for them, after all. Yet the Earth Kingdom Army swears loyalty to the Party and Kuvira, does it not? And when the Party supports terrorists in Jia or countless other little Earth Kingdom countries… well, that's not Earth Kingdom government after all - it's the Party. Or it's a rogue sect of the Party, and how can you ban freedom of speech? The Party is a set of ideals, after all. Once the Party has created chaos, in comes the Earth Kingdom for peace and order."

"This can't be true. The Avatar! The Avatar would put a stop to this and bring balance back to the world!"

"Ah, the Avatar. The last great thorn in the Party's side. The Order of the White Lotus is the Party, just as the Party is the Order of the White Lotus. They've gotten to the Avatar quite some time ago. But the Party must act now, while the Avatar is still an earthbender. When he dies, they will do what they can to speed the cycle of reincarnation along until he is in their clutches, and enough time has passed to dispel their one last superstition. By the time of the next earthbender, he will be reduced to no more than a circus freak to gawk at, not hold with reverence. Yet the Party cloaks itself in the guise of all the tradition and history that it has destroyed!"

"Then who? Then who can stop this? Even if the Air Sovereignty had a common enemy in Jia, even if the Fire Nation is embarrassed to speak out against its former victims, there is still the Council of Republic City. The other nations of the world cannot be blind to the Earth Kingdom and the Party at all times!"

"They say War is politics by other mean. But to the Party, politics is war by other means. Did you know there are five hundred protests in the Earth Kingdom per day? This is no secret to the Fire Nation or Air Sovereignty. Nor is anything else I've told you, or will tell you. It is simply ignored. It is simply perceived as not important. Not my business. Perception, not deception. Both those nations thought they could tame the Party. Tell me, Hou Yi, if you lay with a prostitute enough times will she eventually contract your healthiness? My time in the Party was spent to great effect reverse engineering the systems meant to co opt us. The Air Nomads are blinded by their pride and supposed infallibility. Dealing with the Remnants made it easy to bring them to heel. The Fire Nation thought they could open up markets and bring us into the fold of the global community. We are the global community. We, the Party, buy influence over them one business deal at a time."

"Please tell me this isn't true! Who are the remnants? What you're saying cannot be true! This is another one of your lies and tricks!" Hei Bai dropped me to floor. I gasped again. He squatted beside me, and then as I tried to look up at him he embraced my face with the palm of his hands.

"Oh, little Hou Yi," he said, staring pitifully into my eyes. "You are blind. But I will show you the truth. I will sink my teeth into your scalp and I will bite your Third Eye open. Come and see:


	19. Chapter 17 part 2

Plains Village was a small and unassuming dusty town to the South West of the Si Wong Desert. It was an unremarkable place, if not for Fire Lord Zuko having briefly visited it 150 years ago during his travels while banished by the cruel Phoenix King Ozai. Of course, Plains Village had seen much change since then. The town had grown much larger since then, though was still poor by even the most modest of Air Sovereignty, United Republic of Nations, or Fire Nation standards. However, Plains Village had a big problem.

The Remnants were not by any means unique to Plains Village or the rest of the surrounding province. They were, in fact, an embarrassment to all of the EKPDR. But this province stuck out to the Party like a sore thumb; far from the dominance of the central government, those that could had concentrated in the area for decades following the purges in Ba Sing Sae a century and a half prior.

The Remnants remained an embarrassment to the Air Sovereignty, too. Despite their rhetoric, Avatar Aang was not the Last Airbender. Thousands, in fact, survived the genocide, and a great portion of them escaped the war by living in the massive walls of Ba Sing Sae. After all, what were mere walls to an Air Nomad? But when the walls were breached by General Iroh and his son Lu Ten was slain, the cost of the ceasefire was the expulsion of Nomads from the city. And When Azula finally conquered the city, the streets were stained in the blood of innocent airbender men, women, children, and infants.

Still, the Nomad people persisted. But it had cost them their identity and their culture. Those that could, still practiced their culture in the home, though did not ever learn to airbend for fear of discovery. As they intermingled with the peoples of the Earth Kingdom, entire generations lost the ability to airbend all together, though they still kept the faith. After the Hundred Year War, many followed in the footsteps of Guru Pathik and returned to the temples to keep the faith and as a people, formed the first and the most of Air Acolytes. At long last, it seemed, that harmony had been restored.

When Harmonic Convergence opened up the door between the mortal and spiritual world, it created a divine explosion that rippled across the fabric of the universe. For the first time in 10,000 years, a new echelon of men and women were bestowed the sacred art of airbending. Many of the new airbenders were descendants of the Remnants. Many more were not. A great deal of these newfound airbenders were Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom citizens with no connections to Air Nomad culture at all. Soon, the nu airbenders claimed the Air Sovereignty as their birthright, and the remnants - the relatives and descendants of Aang and Yangchen - found themselves uprooted once more.

Little Tzu-zi was only thirteen, and like many of the citizens of Plains Village she, too, was a Remnant. Little Tzu-zi didn't take kindly to her nickname. She was, after all, the youngest of two daughters in her family, though her big sister lived in Omashu now, married off to a non-Remnant Party member by Party decree at the age of 16. Still, Little Tzu-zi was a late bloomer. She was scared of not catching up to her classmates and it was only in the last year that she had been visited by the dark waters of menstruation. The changes over the next year at first frightened her, but now they excited her. Every morning checked her figure in the mirror for changes, whether it was to her delight, puzzlement, or occasional disgust. Tzu-zi would soon be Little Tzu-zi no longer. Some times, she worried now that she would be too tall, having started to already overshoot some of the boys her age, but she beamed with pride at the thought of being an adult like her mother and sister, and hoped it would be pleasing one day to the man she wanted to call 'husband.'

LIttle Tzu-zi hoped that would be a boy named Ryu. It was only in that last year that Tzu-zi had begun to notice Ryu in a new light that brought stirrings within her, though they had known each other since the age of ten.

That day was a pleasant summer day that not even the sweltering sun could ruin. School and the summer vacation for grade schoolers wouldn't begin for another week. Still, Ryu and the other boys made entertainment for themselves in any way they could - to the abandonment of homework or studying for the upcoming exams. Tzu-Zi's mother, Jun, came across Ryu and a handful of schoolboys standing on the sidewalk, staring at something in the middle of the street. It was the middle of town, but there was nothing but single story buildings - stores and barbershops and the like - with none of the chaos one would get from the more modern, less 'backward' Earth Kingdom cities. Jun paused in her tracks to look past the boys to see what had their attention. In the middle of the road lay a dead cat. She sighed and thought to herself. Oh, those poor young boys. She hoped it was a feral stray and hadn't belonged to any of them.

"Oh cool! Here comes a car!" one of the boys exclaimed.

As the vehicle veered away and sped past another boy said, "Ah, man! It missed!"

Jun was mortified, but then she suppressed a giggle and shook her head. Boys will be boys, she guessed. Then she remembered how people lived in the cities. She had seen all the satomobile and industrial accidents, and the way bystanders stood around did nothing to help them. Not, not here. She had to teach them a lesson. It took a village.

"Hey!" she shouted to the boys as she approached them after making sure no more cars were coming.

Those that saw her could see her intentions from a mile away and scattered. Jun set her sights on her target, the one boy too preoccupied poking the hapless body with a stick to get a good head start. That boy was Ryu. And Jun bent him over her knee and give him a vicious spanking with that same stick right in the middle of public. That was just how things were done in old Plains Village.

Ryu clutched his stinging bottom afterwards as Jun lowered herself to his level and did her best to teach him why what he did was wrong, why life was sacred. She hoped to instill a good moral virtue in him that would guide him through the rest of his life. Unfortunately for Ryu, she succeeded, for in the Earth Kingdom, no milk of human kindness went unpunished by the Party. But for now, Ryu was a crying mess. Jun wiped the tears and snot from his face before leading him by the hand back to his parents' house. It was on their way back that Jun lead Ryu to meet her daughter and husband.

Life got harder for all of them not long after that. That was the year that the police came and took Tzu-zi's father away. He was only going to be there as long as it took to re-educate him, they had said. He'd be well fed, and receive job retraining for free, they also said. Now he was paying back his debt to society working in a not to distant labor, spending most of his day on the production line making satomobiles for a Fire Nation corporation - the cost of labor was just too low for them not move production overseas. Every couple months he'd send a short letter back telling them that he was OK, and was never abused or mistreated. They never did find out exactly what his crime was…

Jun had to be strong for her daughters. Little Tzu-zi spent the first week crying every night and day. Ryu came by every chance after school and tried to help her, but more hardships were on the horizon. Shortly after that her big sister, Ha-Yoon, had agreed to move to Omashu and marry a non-Remnant, as police officials had told them that this would increase their family's social credit score and maybe they'd see their father again sooner. This was becoming the fate of many young Remnant girls in the village.

Ryu could not escape loss, either. All of his friends who managed to escape the gentle wrath of Jun that day could not escape the Party. They were all Remnants, too, and found themselves sent involuntarily to culture-focused boarding school and adopted by foster parents as wards of the state. They were shipped off to the cities away from the other Remnants before he could Ryu could say goodbye, and he watched as their parents grieved as if their children were dead.

Now they were both older. She was thirteen, and he was fourteen. They could never forget what had been done to them, yet it was beginning to feel like so long ago. Ryu had made new friends, and Tzu-zi began to wonder if she really could remember what her father looked like, or if they would recognize each other now.

It was late spring now. The weather was hot but only enough to feel comfortable in shorts and short sleeves. The summers could be stifling but for now, the high schoolers were enjoying the weather and their relative lack of responsibility. They would at least have one or two hours after school to themselves before their parents got out of work.

"Tzu-zi!s Tzu-zi! Wait up," Ryu shouted after her.

The pace of Ryu's step quicked as he hurried ahead of his friends to catch up to her.

"Hey, Tzu-zi," He said. "Let me, uh, lemme carry those books for you."

"It's OK," she said. "You don't have to do that."

"Sure I do. You don't have a backpack. I can at least put your books in mine, it's really no burden," Ryu said as he presented his open palms towards her.

Little Tzu-zi waited till his gaze was turned away from her, and then she began to grin ear to ear. As Ryu's friend caught up to them they began to talk about school, and fun, and what they hoped to do for their next break. Then they went silent as they walked past the local Party chapter's headquarters.

At one point it had been a temple dedicated to the veneration of Avatar Aang. Built by Remnant Acolytes (no tautology intended, for they were not one and the same despite what the Party wanted foreigners to believe) following the end of the Hundred Year War. There were many such temples in the province, dedicated to the 'cult of Aang' as the government claimed it. Then one day a Remnant man walked into a restaurant where several gendarmeries where eating at a table and slammed a mortar shell nose first into it. None of the soldiers were killed. The man lost his arm but survived in critical condition. He was never seen again. After that, the government began bulldozing temples and building Party chapters on top of them.

But after walking by, the talking resumed. Unfortunately, the subject was math homework, and Tzu-zi was the only one with a decent chance of passing the test the teacher had planned.

"I'm going over to Wong's house," said Ryu's friend Zhou "you coming?"

"Why Wong's house?' asked Ryu.

"You didn't hear?" asked Ryu's other friend, Cixi. "Wong's family just got a color telescreen. First one in the whole village!"

"That's OK," Ryu said, glancing back at Tzu-zi. "I really gotta study for this quiz."

Each pair separated and went their own way. For Tzu-zi and Ryu they went to the edge of town, only a few miles away. They walked out into the field of sunflowers. It was one of the only places in the village where the government had not found a place to install security cameras - there were more and more surveillance cameras in the town with each passing year. Ryu's eyes darted back and forth to make sure no one else was around before he stopped and reached into his backpack.

"Here," He said. "I want to show you something."

"What is it," Tzu-zi asked.

Ryu produced a book from his backpack and opened it, "This is what sifu Li and I have been practicing. This is the Dhamma Chakra."

Tzu-zi took the book from him and studied its pages. It was a photocopy of an ancient scroll, written in the traditional characters they didn't teach in school anymore. Its pages were decorated with calligraphy and numerous detailed pictures of men and women performing various forms of the bending arts.

"Li is teaching me all he knows," Ryu said. Settling into a horse stance and then gracefully transitioning to a fighting crane.

He struck quickly with a snap kick and then performed his Kata before transitioning back to the sedated and methodical motions of waterbending. Each one of his motions, perfect. With wide eyes and trembling hands, Tzu-zi continued to flip through the pages of the book.

"You shouldn't do this," Tzu-zi said. "It's dangerous."

"No, it's OK. We've taken a vow of nonviolence."

"I meant it's dangerous for you."

"Li and I practice in secret, where there are no cameras. It's not like we're Air Acolytes, though. We don't practice only one type of martial art."

Master Li, Ryu, and Li's other students were indeed careful. Li was a guru, in the nonbending spiritual tradition of Guru Pathik. They were not Remnants, and unlike the Air Acolytes who tried to maintain the culture of the Aang and his forefathers, practitioners of Dhamma Chakra taught meditation as well as all styles and forms of bending. While Air Acolytes practiced veganism, Dhamma Chakra practitioners took this one step farther and practiced absolute nonviolence for the sake of relieving suffering. This included violence against themselves as well. There was no greater sin than suicide. Drinking to excess, using drugs, and smoking was forbidden. Even eating unhealthily was against their faith. Exercising and practicing the forms of bending arts was itself a form of spiritual worship.

As harmless as it would seem, they all knew if they were caught meditating they would see the inside of a jail cell for causing a public disturbance. This never dissuaded them. They would often practice in their basements now. In the past, Li and Ryu had practiced together at night out in this very sunflower field. It was the same spot that over a century ago Prince Zuko had taught Lee - the very Lee for which Li was both named and descended from - the martial art of dual broadswords. There were likely too many police now for Li and his students to practice outside at night ever again.

As a child, Ryu had trouble in school. He wanted to be strong for Little Tzu-Zi. But each year, more and more of his classmates were sent away to orphanages or boarding schools to the north. Meanwhile, more and more non-Remnants from the cities were being moved into the province by the government. They were almost starting to outnumber the kids in the younger grades now. Soon, Ryu found himself an outsider in his own school. He wasn't a remnant himself, but the new kids still bullied him like he was. He went to Li to learn how to fight. Li taught Ryu how to find inner strength and inner peace instead.

"But what about the government! You could get into a lot of trouble doing this. What if they take you away?"

"It's fine. I know you can get in trouble," said Ryu. "I'll be careful, I promise. There's a lot of things that can make you end up in prison. I can't let stop me now."

"But what if the government's right and it should be banned, Ryu?. What if it's illegal for a good reason?"

"How can you say that? I know it was before we were born, but don't you remember not too long ago? How the government ran PSAs encouraging people to practice it? There were millions of people in the Earth Kingdom practicing it. How can the government be right that it's dangerous when they were the ones promoting it for over ten years? Just like the Acolytes, it's part of our culture! It's a traditional part of who we are!"

Tzu-zi knew all this to be true, but she was terrified. Terrified for Ryu and what might happen to him.

"Then why does the government say that this is a dangerous cult? Isn't it exactly this sort of spirituality that led to Tarlok trying to bring the Age of Raava? I never saw the PSAs that Li might have lied to you about, but I've seen plenty of former practitioners confess on the telescreen that they'd been brainwashed and that Dhamma Chakra is evil!"

"Oh," Exclaimed Ryu, "You mean just like how the Acolytes like your father should be locked up to treat them for their dangerous delusions, or feeblemindedness and mental illness?"

Ryu hadn't yet learned that inner peace after all. He hadn't meant to, but at that moment his words cut Tzu-zi's heart like a knife. Ryu tried to apologize to her, but with tears in her eyes, she dropped Ryu's book and started to run back to her house.

Ryu clutched his hair and cursed at himself. How could he be so thoughtless! After picking up his book he began to walk back to Master Li's house. He would have to apologize to Master Li for his failure as a student, and then ask Li for his guidance on how to apologize to Tzu-zi as well. On reaching Li's home, he knocked on the door. After five minutes he no one answered. This was strange; he should have been home. Ryu announced his presence and let himself in. Several chairs in the living room had been knocked over, and Master Li was nowhere to be found…

Tzu-zi did whatever she could to wipe the tears from her eyes when she got home. She was going to be a woman, not Little Tzu-zi any more. She took a big breath and stepped thru the front door. Her mother and Mr. Yongkang were sitting down to eat dinner.

"Ah, good evening, Tzu-Tzu," said Yongkong

"Hello, mister Yongkang," Said Tzu-zi

"Please," Yongkang insisted. "You can call me 'uncle' now."

Truth be told, Yongkang couldn't have given a damn what they called him. The Party, seeing a family without its stable source of income and the oldest working-age child both moved out of the house, took pity on them and so moved Party member Mr. Yongkang into their house to live with them as their surrogate father. It wasn't a glamorous assignment, but if it went well he'd probably get that promotion he was working for. It wasn't all bad, really. The beds were still separate, but that'd probably change soon if hey wanted their father back from job retraining camp this year…

"Your mother made dinner for you," he said. "We've saved some. Did you want any? Say, why don't you tell me what you're other classmates are up to? Anything… unusual?"

"I'm not hungry right now," Tzu-zi said.

Jun, who had waited for Tzu-zi to come home to eat, now produced a pair of chopsticks from her purse. Yongkang stood up and walked around the table to where Jun sat, then gingerly plucked the chopsticks from her hands and dropped them into the garbage can. Passing her a fork, as was common to use now in the cities, he filled her bowl with pork from one of the several prepared dishes. Jun was, of course, an Acolyte. And as she brought the meat to her mouth and began to chew, Yongkang studied her face intently for any signs of disloyalty.

About to break again, Tzu-zi stormed off to her room, with her mother calling after her.

"Tzu-zi? What's wrong?" Jun asked as she got up and followed after her.

Yongkang couldn't care less about this and stayed behind to finish his bowl of rice and shrimp. Jun found Tzu-zi tearing through her belongings from her closet when her mother found her.

"Tzu-zi," she asked. "Tell me what's going on"

"I hate him!" she said. "I hate that man!"

Like swatting a fly, Jun had rushed Tzu-zi and slapped her hand over Tzu-zi's mouth.

"Shut up!" she spat through clenched teeth. "Do you want to see your father again? If you do you need to control yourself right now."

"But it's true… I do. I can't stand much more of this," Tzu-zi said as she began crying again

"Now you listen here. I've done so much to protect you and keep you safe. Why do you think I even named you an Earth Kingdom name like Tzu-zi and not a proper Remnant name like dad chose? Why do you think I never raised you as an Acolyte either? They could have taken you before you were old enough to even remember me! You would have grown up not even knowing you were a descendant of the Nomads either. Did you know they just took our neighbor down the street, mister Li?"

"No… what will happen him?" Tzu-zi asked as her eyes grew wide and her hands started to shake.

"If you don't want it to happen to you too, you had better learn to start saying, 'that's not my business.' Do you understand?"

Jun could now hear the approach of Mr. Yonkang's footsteps and said, "Now please, Tzu-zi, think of all the good things that the government has done for us instead, OK? There used to be illiteracy and it was more dangerous back then. Now people are wealthier and we have things like access to modern hospitals and Telescreens for everyone."

Sometimes Jun wondered why all military-run hospitals were built so close to the prisons. But it wasn't her business. How could a hospital with five beds in the transplant ward show that they did less than that number in an entire? But it wasn't her business…

Meanwhile, the news of Li's disappearance had spread throughout the town, and quickly beyond to the neighboring towns in the province as if the whole community of Dhamma Chakra practitioners was a singular organism. Dhamma Chakra practitioners here were nowhere as numerous as they had been in the cities, as they had been driven underground and Air Acolytes remained the only open form of spirituality despite the efforts of the Party. After all, the Party cracked down on all Remnants, Acolytes and non Acolytes alike. As the dusk began to settle, the crowd had gathered around the Party chapter headquarters. It was only fifty at first, within hours there were hundreds.

Ryu, of course, heard about this right away and would join them. But first, he had to go to Tzu-zi's house and apologize, or at the very least give Tzu-zi her school books back. He knocked on the door and asked for Tzu-zi when Jun answered. came outside a few moments later.

"Hey, Tzu-zi," he said, squirming in place "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I should have never said that"

"Ryu, you don't have to -"

"Yes, I do! But if you're still mad at me that's OK. I just wanted to give this back," he said as he returned the books

"Ryu, I didn't mean what I said back there either. I heard about Li. I'm sorry."

"It's OK, Tzu-zi. A lot of people have heard about it, too. Don't worry about though I can handle it," he said

"Promise me!" Tzu-zi shouted, "Promise me you aren't going to the protest!"

"What? There's not a protest. We're not doing anything like that."

"I don't care! Don't go."

"I, uh, I can't. I mean, I have to. I know it's dangerous. I have to be brave; if there's even a chance we can stop it, It's my duty to try!"

Before Tzu-zi could say anything else, Jun had called to her and Ryu began running off towards the Party headquarters.

At the Party chapter office, some three hundred people had assembled and lined the sidewalks in neat little rows. The police, armed like soldiers or carrying riot gear, had started to cordon off the area but it was too late. The assemblage of practitioners was silent, sudden, and without warning as none carried any signs or chanted any slogans, and their gathering was spontaneous. Ryu had pushed his way past onlookers to join the others on the sidewalk before the police could completely surround the block.

With no leader present, the Dhamma Chakra practitioners simply began to do what they had always done and started to meditate in tranquil silence as the squeak of tank treads began to draw nearer. They slowly stretched in unison, performing the slow and gentle dance-like motions that thousands had practiced for thousands of years before. Once they finished they either stood there or sat with closed eyes in the sacred form of lotus padmasana. After the military back up had finished assembling, a Party representative walked out and confronted a balding grey haired elder near the front of the building.

"Tell me the meaning of this. What are your demands?" He asked.

"Demands? No, sir, you misunderstand," the old man said. "We're not here to make any demands of you. We just want to know why our sifu, Li, has been taken, if the news is true. Surely, there must be a mistake. He was only every practicing in private and not causing disharmonious disruption."

"Oh, like you are causing now?" the Party officer asked.

He walked back inside the building. He had decided what should be done about this and radioed to the soldiers outside. He only needed a few minutes to get everyone on the same page.

Ryu - and most other practitioners gathered here - had never heard the sound of a real-life machine gun before. While the loudness of the noise caused him to jump reflexively, he only had the presence of mind to look around the crowd for its cause. It was only after he saw people collapsing in waves did he realize what was happening. Ryu and the others got up and started to run. The deafening chattering sound and bright flashes came from all sides. As the panicking crowd pushed forward, the pressure was enough that the police barricades gave way and the crowd funneled through at the path of least resistance.

Ryu nearly tripped several times, there were so many people pushing him from all sides. Over the sound of the gunshots, over the sound of hundreds of screams, He could hear the bleat of the tank's engines behind him. He ran faster now before he slipped on the blood. He tried to get back up and was at once pushed back down by the mass of people around him. Eventually he succeeded, only to be struck through his legs by bullets. He kept crawling and crawling on his belly, ignoring all pain, until the tank ran over and crushed his skull.

Having cleared out the square, the Party officials guessed that maybe they'd gotten only seventy or so of the cultists. It wasn't worth actually counting the number of dead. Ah, if only they had the time and resources to get all of them. The officials would have like for more manpower, but they had to clean up the protest for nosey people from outside the province with cameras showed up. They couldn't repeat the mistakes they had made thirty or so years prior with how they handled the student protests in Ba Sing Sae. This massacre would be just another Tuesday in the greater Earth Kingdom.

Still, something had to be done about all the bodies. Ryu and the others were thrown into a pile and then the tanks drove back and forth across them until they ground into jelly. Once they had finished, the fire department came and hosed them down the drains into the sewers that the government had so graciously built for the people of Plains Village under the guiding principles of the Party.

Little Tzu-zi was worried about Ryu. She was scared that something could happen to him, or that he might be arrested and taken away. It was dark now, the sun had just set. Tzu-zi opened her window and snuck out of the house, determined to find him and make sure he was safe.

As she made her way down the street she suddenly heard a distant sound like fireworks and chattering teeth, followed by a cacophony of noise of all kinds. She had no idea what she was hearing until a few moments later she saw a stampede of men and women rounding the corner of the intersection and rushing toward. She tried to turn around and run away. Quickly, she was overtaken and thrown to the ground. She landed hard and screamed after seeing her forearm bend in half like a twig. She tried to protect her broken arm while fleeing victims struck into it again and again. A man bolted past her, and she struck her head into the concrete side of the of a storefront.

She lay there, dazed, for almost an hour. She was lucky not to have been trampled to death then and there. The police found her soon, and an ambulance came to take her to the local hospital, a small clinic with a freestanding emergency department. It was another hour more before she came out of the narcotic-induced stupor and, created by absolute pandemonium, in the clinic, began to ask what had happened.

"You were at the protest, weren't you?" asked a police officer

"No," she said. "I'm just trying to find my friend."

"Was he or she at the protest?"

"Please," she begged, "his name is Ryu. have you seen a boy my age named Ryu?"

The officer ignored her while the nurse came and started to draw blood from her.

It took several hours more for Butcher Huang to arrive. He had to come by ground vehicle from the nearest military hospital. It wasn't often that they found a compatible donor that met all the criteria.

"We're taking you to the military hospital. They need the ER beds here to triage more gunshot victims," The nurse told her as she was being transferred to the ambulance.

The layman likely would not have understood that a doctor - let alone a surgeon - would ever be wasted riding in the back of an interfacility ambulance, the medical equivalent of a garbage truck. The layman, also would likely not understand that none of the equipment or tools or medicines in the back of the ambulance was of the appropriate type for the prehospital or transport arena. Though to someone like another doctor, it would have stood out immediately.

After driving for the first two hours, Butcher Huang signaled for the ambulance driver to pull off the side of the road. He grabbed the nonrebreather mask and attached it to the ether.

"What's going on?" asked Little Tzu-zi. "Why did we stop."

"It's OK," Butcher Huang said. "You don't need to worry about it. This will help with the pain."

Butcher Huang forced the mask over her face, and Tzu-zi began to thrash about trying to get it off. Screaming 'no,' little Tzu-zi grew weaker with every breath.

"Momma!" she screamed, "Momma! Momma, please help me!"

Eventually, she slowed down, only mouthing the word momma silently to herself. 'What an ill-mannered brat!' thought Butcher Huang 'How could you involve your mother in this when this is your mess that you should be paying for!'

Little Tzu-zi, of course, was not dead, only sedated, as was necessary to keep her breathing and her heart beating. Once she stopped moving, Butcher Huang and his partners got to work. First, Huang made the incisions down her chest and belly, breaking the ribs and splitting her body open like a cadaver at the morgue.

Huang took Little Tzu-zi's liver first. It was a long and delicate procedure, Butcher Huang's scalpels were guided with extraordinary metalbending precision. The liver was the most profitable of the organs followed by the kidneys. Over the course of another hour, he took both of those from Little Tzu-zi as well. Throughout all of this, Butcher Huang's team took incredible effort with the best of modern medicine to keep Little Tzu-zi's heart beating on its own. They would keep her alive as long as they possibly could - the remaining organs had to be kept fresh.

Next, Butcher Huang took to getting every last piece of flesh that he could before Little Tzu-zi expired. There was a nearly endless supply of good on-demand organs from the healthy Dhamma Chakra practitioners, but organs from a child? That was a rare opportunity. Nothing in Little Tzu-zi's body could go to waste. The spleen, the pancreas, even the islet cells would good for a good price. He knew that one of the kidneys would go to some Party member's kids, but the liver would go the daughter of a Fire Nation VIP who had spent months on a waiting list in their own country.

Butcher Huang had been part of the transplant team that removed and put organs into the Avatar himself. Otherwise, he would have died long ago. Huang didn't mind this seemingly less prestigious assignment though arguably the Fire Nation VIP was a much more important target.

The doctors worked round the clock, suctioning up all the hemorrhage, pumping Little Tzu-zi with drugs to keep blood pressures from bottoming out and her little heart from flatlining. Done with all the internal organs, he scooped out both of Little Tzu-Zi's eyes next, depositing them into bags that went into coolers with all of the other organs. Finally, nothing else left, Butcher Hung cut out Little Tzu-zi's heart.

It was only another forty-five-minute drive back to the hospital where recipients were waiting on their surgeries. The sun had already come up, they had been harvesting for so long. The day wasn't even close to done. Butcher Huang and his team took the service elevator up through the hospital, dragging several coolers and a medical waste bag behind them. One of Butcher Huang's colleagues at the hospital stepped on to join them.

"What you got in there? Beers?" He said, pointing at the coolers.

"I wish," Butcher Huang said.

They both shared in a hearty laugh.

It was all in a day's work. The Dhamma Chakra practitioners were the best source of good organs, but they'd run out soon. Huang was starting to see more and more Remnants on his operating table, 'oh well,' he thought there'd always be other criminals. No one really cared about the Dhamma Chakra. It was a cult after all. The Remnants were a bit trickier, as they were actually a distinct people group. With every year the Party was getting better and better at managing its dissidents though. What they learned from the Dhamma Chakra were invaluable lessons that were being used on the Remnants.

Soon, the Water Tribe would follow. It would be a bit more difficult. Even a Fire Nation yuppie could see the difference between brown and yellow skin, so it would be harder to justify active measures. Being of a different race, they'd be a bad stock of organs, too. But there were always other methods. The illicit narcotics that the government ignored in the Water Tribe ghetto was now killing more of them than any other cause of unnatural death, and the Party had yet to start it's Harmony and Order campaign against them. They'd wait till the Remnants were gone first, it wouldn't be long. After all, the lessons in subduing the Remnant threat would be just as invaluable in tackling the Water Tribe.

As for dealing with the cleanup, there were several options. Butcher Huang found that child-sized body bags would overly distress his nurses. It would be hard to stuff a body into a medical waste bag due to the shape of it; through trial and error, Butcher Huang had a solution. By severing the spine at C7, T12, and L4, Huang found that you could roll the body up into a ball. Little Tzu-zi's head was stuffed face first into the cavity where her organs used to be, and then her arms and legs wrapped around her before being stuffed into the bag. The bulge was indistinguishable from any other full bag of medical trash. Little Tzu-zi's body was finally thrown into the incinerator, along with other amputated limbs, dirty needles, and blankets stained with human shit.


End file.
